suddenly changed into boisterous laughter, which must have
become quite hysterical as I sat opposite this grave Professor
and saw him--or rather heard him--in the character of the
uproarious rooster or the puppy whose tail had been trodden
upon. Once Lord John passed across his newspaper, upon the
margin of which he had written in pencil, "Poor devil! Mad as a
hatter." No doubt it was very eccentric, and yet the performance
struck me as extraordinarily clever and amusing.

Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me
some interminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah
which seemed to me to have neither beginning nor end. Professor
Summerlee had just begun to chirrup like a canary, and Lord John
to get to the climax of his story, when the train drew up at
Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as the station for
Rotherfield.

And there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was
glorious. Not all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the
slow, high-stepping dignity with which he paraded his own
railway station and the benignant smile of condescending
encouragement with which he regarded everybody around him. If he
had changed in anything since the days of old, it was that his
points had become accentuated. The huge head and broad sweep of
forehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even
greater than before. His black beard poured forward in a more
impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes, with their insolent
and sardonic eyelids, were even more masterful than of yore.

He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the