hyroid gland--I don't believe poor Bob's got one, between
ourselves--and how if you enlarged it or reduced it you'd adjust
people's characters to suit the needs of Society; and all about
chimpanzi's blood--I believe he _vivisects_ half through the night
in that studio behind the house--being the same as ours; and then
Ray Lankester and Chalmers Mitchell argued about the caeca--caecums,
you know--something to do with appendicitis--of the mammalia, and
altogether we had a high old time--I _always_ learn something on
their Thursdays."

Well: Rossiter resumed his description of an experiment he was
making--quite an everyday one, of course, for there were at least
three men present to whom he wasn't going to give away clues
prematurely. An experiment on the motor biallaxis of dormice.

[Mrs. Rossiter had six months previously bought a dormouse in a cage
at a bazaar, and after idolizing it for a week had forgotten all
about it. Her husband had rescued it half starved; his assistant had
fed it up in the laboratory, and they had tried a few experiments on
it with painless drugs with astonishing results.]

The recital really was interesting and entirely outside the
priggishness of Science, but it was marred in consecutiveness and
simplicity by Mrs. Rossiter's interruptions. "Michael dear, Lady
Dombey's cup!" Or: "Mike, could you cut that cake and hand it
round?" Or, if she didn't interrupt her husband she started stories
and side-issues of her own in a voice that was quite distinctly
heard, about a new stitch in crochet she had seen in the _Queen_, or
her inspection of the East Marrybone soup kitchen.

However when all had taken as much tea and cakes and _marrons
glaces_ as they cared for--David was so shy that he had only one cup
of tea and one piece of tea-cake--the large group broke up into five
smaller ones. The few gradually converged, and dropping all nonsense
discussed biology like good 'uns, David listening eager-eyed and
enthralled at the marvels just beginning to peep out of the
dissecting and vivisecting rooms and chemical laboratories in the
opening years of the Twentieth century. Then one by one they all
departed; but as David was going too Rossiter detained him by a
kindly pressure on the arm--a contact which sent a half-pleasant,
half-disagreeable thrill through his nerves.

"Don't hurry away unless you really _are_ pressed for time. I want
to show you some of my specimens and the place where I work."

Dav