estable logic that much of
Elmer's treatise on Eugenics was based on evidence that must be viewed
with the gravest suspicion. Not that Grossmann had directly attacked
that treatise; he had made no kind of reference to it in his own book;
but his irrefutable statements had been quoted by every reviewer of
"Eugenics" who chanced to have come across the English translation of
"Heredity and Human Development," to the confounding of Elmer's somewhat
too optimistic prophecies concerning the possibility of breeding a race
that should approximate to a physical and intellectual perfection.

And it happened that Elmer met Grossmann at an informal gathering of
members of the Royal Society a few days after the examination of the
Wonder in the Challis Court Library. Herr Grossmann was delivering an
impromptu lecture on the limits of variation from the normal type, when
Elmer came in and joined the group of the great Professor's listeners,
every one of whom was seeking some conclusive argument to confute their
guest's overwhelmingly accurate collation of facts.

Elmer realised instantly that his opportunity had come at last. He
listened patiently for a few minutes to the flow of the German's
argument, and then broke in with a loud exclamation of dissent. All the
learned members of the Society turned to him at once, with a movement of
profound relief and expectation.

"You said what?" asked Grossmann with a frown of great annoyance.

Elmer thrust out his lower lip and looked at his antagonist with the
expression of a man seeking a vital spot for the coup de grace.

"I said, Herr Professor," Elmer returned, "that there are exceptions
which confound your argument."

"For example?" Grossmann said, putting his hands behind him and gently
nodding his head like a tolerant schoolmaster awaiting the inevitable
confusion of the too intrepid scholar.

"Christian Heinecken?" suggested Elmer.

"Ah! You have not then read my brochure on certain abnormalities
reported in history?" Grossmann said, and continued, "Mr. Aylmer, is it
not? To whom I am speaking? Yes? We have met, I believe, once in
Leipzig. I thought so. But in my brochure, Mr. Aylmer, I have examined
the Heinecken case and shown my reasons to regard it as not so departing
from the normal."

Elmer shook his head. "Your reasons are not valid, Herr Professor," he
said and held up a corpulent forefinger to enforce Grossmann's further
attention. "They seemed convincing at the time