He took a little bone the size of a bean out of a pill-box.
"So far as I am a judge this human bone is the analogue of the
one which you hold in your hand. That will give you some idea of
the size of the creature. You will observe from the cartilage that
this is no fossil specimen, but recent. What do you say to that?"

"Surely in an elephant----"

He winced as if in pain.

"Don't! Don't talk of elephants in South America. Even in these
days of Board schools----"

"Well," I interrupted, "any large South American animal--a tapir,
for example."

"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of
my business. This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or
of any other creature known to zoology. It belongs to a very
large, a very strong, and, by all analogy, a very fierce animal
which exists upon the face of the earth, but has not yet come
under the notice of science. You are still unconvinced?"

"I am at least deeply interested."

"Then your case is not hopeless. I feel that there is reason
lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it.
We will now leave the dead American and proceed with my narrative.
You can imagine that I could hardly come away from the Amazon
without probing deeper into the matter. There were indications