itor's
card and the card of M. Thenard and presented them to a functionary with a
large pale face, who was seated at a table close to the door.

This personage, who was as soberly dressed as an archbishop, and had
altogether a pontifical air, raised himself to his feet and approached the
visitor.

"Has monsieur an appointment----"

"No," said Adams. "I have come to see your master on business. You can
take him my card--yes, that one--Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thenard."

The functionary seemed perplexed; the early hour, the size of the visitor,
his decided manner, all taken together, were out of routine. Only for a
moment he hesitated, then leading the way across the warm and
flower-scented hall, he opened a door and said, "Will monsieur take a
seat?" Adams entered a big room, half library, half museum; the door
closed behind him, and he found himself alone.

The four walls of the room showed a few books, but were mostly covered
with arms and trophies of the chase. Japanese swords in solid ivory
scabbards, swords of the old Samurai so keen that a touch of the edge
would divide a suspended hair. Malay krisses, double-handed Chinese
execution swords; old pepper-pot revolvers, such as may still be found on
the African coast; knob-kerries, assegais, steel-spiked balls swinging
from whips of raw hide; weapons wild and savage and primitive as those
with which Attila drove before him the hordes of the Huns, and modern
weapons of to-day and yesterday; the big elephant gun which has been
supplanted by the express rifle; the deadly magazine rifle, the latest
products of Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix and Westley Richards of
London.

Adams forgot time as he stood examining these things; then he turned his
attention to the trophies, mounted by Borchard of Berlin, that prince of
taxidermists. Here stood a great ape, six feet and over--_monstrum
horrendum_--head flung back, mouth open, shouting aloud to the imagination
of the gazer in the language that was spoken ere the earliest man lifted
his face to the chill mystery of the stars. In the right fist was clutched
the branch of a M'bina tree, ready lifted to dash your brains out--the
whole thing a miracle of the taxidermist's art. Here crawled an alligator
on a slab of granitic rock; an alligator--that is to say, the despair of
the taxidermist--for you can make nothing out of an alligator; alive and
not in motion he looks stuffed, stuffed, he looks just the same.
Hartbeest,