contact with a 'Beyond-cat' of extraordinary intelligence. I had
gone far along the road to success in recent experiments; with
Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the goal."

Mr. Appin concluded his remarkable statement in a voice which he
strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats,"
though Clovis's lips moved in a monosyllabic contortion which
probably invoked those rodents of disbelief.

"And do you mean to say," asked Miss Resker, after a slight pause,
"that you have taught Tobermory to say and understand easy
sentences of one syllable?"

"My dear Miss Resker," said the wonderworker patiently, "one
teaches little children and savages and backward adults in that
piecemeal fashion; when one has once solved the problem of making
a beginning with an animal of highly developed intelligence one
has no need for those halting methods. Tobermory can speak our
language with perfect correctness."

This time Clovis very distinctly said, " Beyond-rats!" Sir
Wilfrid was more polite, but equally sceptical.

"Hadn't we better have the cat in and judge for ourselves?"
suggested Lady Blemley.

Sir Wilfrid went in search of the animal, and the company settled
themselves down to the languid expectation of witnessing some more
or less adroit drawing-room ventriloquism.