fellow-scientists. A quick
expression of alarm came into her lovely eyes. Would they vote against
giving her a hearing before the congress? It required a unanimous vote
to reject a subject. She turned her eyes on me.

I rose, red as fire, my head humming with a chaos of ideas all
disordered and vague, yet whirling along in a single, resistless
current. I had come to the congress prepared to deliver a monograph on
the great auk; but now the subject went overboard as the birds
themselves had, and I found myself pleading with the committee to give
the Countess a hearing on the ux.

"Why not?" I exclaimed, warmly. "It is established beyond question
that the ux does exist in Tasmania. Wallace saw several uxen, through
his telescope, walking about upon the inaccessible heights of the
Tasmanian Mountains. Darwin acknowledged that the bird exists;
Professor Farrago has published a pamphlet containing an accumulation
of all data bearing upon the ux. Why should not Madame la Comtesse be
heard by the entire congress?"

I looked at Sir Peter Grebe.

"Have _you_ seen this alleged bird skin in the Antwerp Museum?" he
asked, perspiring with indignation.

"Yes, I have," said I. "It has been patched up, but how are we to know
that the skin did not require patching? I have not found that ostrich
skin has been used. It is true that the Tasmanians may have shot the
bird to pieces and mended the skin with bits of cassowary hide here
and there. But the greater part of the skin, and the beak and claws,
are, in my estimation, well worth the serious attention of savants. To
pronounce them fraudulent is, in my opinion, rash and premature."

I mopped my brow; I was in for it now. I had thrown in my reputation
with the reputation of the Countess.

The displeasure and astonishment of my confreres was unmistakable. In
the midst of a strained silence I moved that a vote be taken upon the
advisability of a hearing before the congress on the subject of the
ux. After a pause the young Countess, pale and determined, seconded my
motion. The result of the balloting was a foregone conclusion; the
Countess had one vote--she herself refraining from voting--and the
subject was entered on the committee-book as acceptable and a date set
for the hearing before the International Congress.

The effect of this vote on our little committee was most marked.
Constraint took the place of cordiality, polite reserve replaced that
guileless and open-hearted cour