ess I give up writing
fiction nobody will believe what I write about science. Therefore it
is to a serious and unimaginative public that I shall hereafter
address myself; and I do it in the modest confidence that I shall
neither be distrusted nor doubted, although unfortunately I still
write in that irrational style which suggests covert frivolity, and
for which I am undergoing a course of treatment in English literature
at Columbia College. Now, having promised to avoid originality and
confine myself to facts, I shall tell what I have to tell concerning
the dingue, the mammoth, and--something else.

For some weeks it had been rumored that Professor Farrago, president
of the Bronx Park Zoological Society, would resign, to accept an
enormous salary as manager of Barnum & Bailey's circus. He was now
with the circus in London, and had promised to cable his decision
before the day was over.

I hoped he would decide to remain with us. I was his secretary and
particular favorite, and I viewed, without enthusiasm, the advent of a
new president, who might shake us all out of our congenial and
carefully excavated ruts. However, it was plain that the trustees of
the society expected the resignation of Professor Farrago, for they
had been in secret session all day, considering the names of possible
candidates to fill Professor Farrago's large, old-fashioned shoes.
These preparations worried me, for I could scarcely expect another
chief as kind and considerate as Professor Leonidas Farrago.

That afternoon in June I left my office in the Administration Building
in Bronx Park and strolled out under the trees for a breath of air.
But the heat of the sun soon drove me to seek shelter under a little
square arbor, a shady retreat covered with purple wistaria and
honeysuckle. As I entered the arbor I noticed that there were three
other people seated there--an elderly lady with masculine features and
short hair, a younger lady sitting beside her, and, farther away, a
rough-looking young man reading a book.

For a moment I had an indistinct impression of having met the elder
lady somewhere, and under circumstances not entirely agreeable, but
beyond a stony and indifferent glance she paid no attention to me. As
for the younger lady, she did not look at me at all. She was very
young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as
fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.

With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientif