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Chapter II "Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger"
I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news editor, and I
rather hoped that he liked me.
Of course, Beaumont was the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied atmosphere of some
Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an
international crisis or a split in the Cabinet.
Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely majesty to his inner sanctum, with his eyes
staring vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the Persian Gulf.
He was above and beyond us.
But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it was he that we knew.
The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he pushed his spectacles far up on his
bald forehead.
"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well," said he in his
kindly Scotch accent. I thanked him.
"The colliery explosion was excellent.
So was the Southwark fire. You have the true descreeptive touch.
What did you want to see me about?" "To ask a favor."
He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine.
"Tut, tut! What is it?"
"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper?
I would do my best to put it through and get you some good copy."
"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?"
"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it.
I really would do my very best.
The more difficult it was, the better it would suit me."
"You seem very anxious to lose your life." "To justify my life, Sir."
"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very--very exalted.
I'm afraid the day for this sort of thing is rather past.
The expense of the 'special meesion' business hardly justifies the result, and,
of course, in any case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would
command public confidence who would get such an order.
The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for
romance anywhere.
Wait a bit, though!" he added, with a sudden smile upon his face.
"Talking of the blank spaces of the map gives me an idea.
What about exposing a fraud--a modern Munchausen--and making him rideeculous?
You could show him up as the liar that he is!
Eh, man, it would be fine.
How does it appeal to you?" "Anything--anywhere--I care nothing."
McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes.
"I wonder whether you could get on friendly--or at least on talking terms with
the fellow," he said, at last.
"You seem to have a sort of genius for establishing relations with people--
seempathy, I suppose, or animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something.
I am conscious of it myself."
"You are very good, sir." "So why should you not try your luck with
Professor Challenger, of Enmore Park?" I dare say I looked a little startled.
"Challenger!"
I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous
zoologist! Wasn't he the man who broke the skull of
Blundell, of the Telegraph?"
The news editor smiled grimly. "Do you mind?
Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?"
"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered.
"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent
as that.
I'm thinking that Blundell got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the wrong
fashion. You may have better luck, or more tact in
handling him.
There's something in your line there, I am sure, and the Gazette should work it."
"I really know nothing about him," said I.
"I only remember his name in connection with the police-court proceedings, for
striking Blundell." "I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr.
Malone.
I've had my eye on the Professor for some little time."
He took a paper from a drawer. "Here is a summary of his record.
I give it you briefly:--
"'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863.
Educ.: Largs Academy; Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892.
Assistant-Keeper of Comparative Anthropology Department, 1893.
Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year.
Winner of Crayston Medal for Zoological Research.
Foreign Member of'--well, quite a lot of things, about two inches of small type--
'Societe Belge, American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc.
Ex-President Palaeontological Society.
Section H, British Association'--so on, so on!--'Publications: "Some Observations Upon
a Series of Kalmuck Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution"; and numerous papers,
including "The underlying fallacy of
Weissmannism," which caused heated discussion at the Zoological Congress of
Vienna. Recreations: Walking, Alpine climbing.
Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.'
"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night."
I pocketed the slip of paper.
"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head, and not a red
face, which was fronting me. "I am not very clear yet why I am to
interview this gentleman.
What has he done?" The face flashed back again.
"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago.
Came back last year.
Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to say exactly where.
Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but somebody started to pick holes,
and he just shut up like an oyster.
Something wonderful happened--or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable
supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be
fakes.
Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters down
the stairs. In my opinion he's just a homicidal
megalomaniac with a turn for science.
That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now, off you run, and see what you can make
of him. You're big enough to look after yourself.
Anyway, you are all safe.
Employers' Liability Act, you know." A grinning red face turned once more into a
pink oval, fringed with gingery fluff; the interview was at an end.
I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it I leaned upon
the railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully for a long time at the brown,
oily river.
I can always think most sanely and clearly in the open air.
I took out the list of Professor Challenger's exploits, and I read it over
under the electric lamp.
Then I had what I can only regard as an inspiration.
As a Pressman, I felt sure from what I had been told that I could never hope to get
into touch with this cantankerous Professor.
But these recriminations, twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean
that he was a fanatic in science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon
which he might be accessible?
I would try. I entered the club.
It was just after eleven, and the big room was fairly full, though the rush had not
yet set in.
I noticed a tall, thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire.
He turned as I drew my chair up to him.
It was the man of all others whom I should have chosen--Tarp Henry, of the staff of
Nature, a thin, dry, leathery creature, who was full, to those who knew him, of kindly
humanity.
I plunged instantly into my subject. "What do you know of Professor Challenger?"
"Challenger?" He gathered his brows in scientific
disapproval.
"Challenger was the man who came with some ***-and-bull story from South America."
"What story?" "Oh, it was rank nonsense about some ***
animals he had discovered.
I believe he has retracted since. Anyhow, he has suppressed it all.
He gave an interview to Reuter's, and there was such a howl that he saw it wouldn't do.
It was a discreditable business.
There were one or two folk who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon
choked them off." "How?"
"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior.
There was poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute.
Wadley sent a message: 'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his
compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he
would do them the honor to come to their next meeting.'
The answer was unprintable." "You don't say?"
"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger presents his
compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, and would take it as
a personal favor if he would go to the devil.'"
"Good Lord!" "Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said.
I remember his wail at the meeting, which began: 'In fifty years experience of
scientific intercourse----' It quite broke the old man up."
"Anything more about Challenger?"
"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a nine-hundred-diameter
microscope.
I can hardly claim to take serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked
eye.
I'm a frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel quite out of place
when I leave my study and come into touch with all you great, rough, hulking
creatures.
I'm too detached to talk scandal, and yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard
something of Challenger, for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore.
He's as clever as they make 'em--a full- charged battery of force and vitality, but
a quarrelsome, ill-conditioned faddist, and unscrupulous at that.
He had gone the length of faking some photographs over the South American
business." "You say he is a faddist.
What is his particular fad?"
"He has a thousand, but the latest is something about Weissmann and Evolution.
He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe."
"Can't you tell me the point?"
"Not at the moment, but a translation of the proceedings exists.
We have it filed at the office. Would you care to come?"
"It's just what I want.
I have to interview the fellow, and I need some lead up to him.
It's really awfully good of you to give me a lift.
I'll go with you now, if it is not too late."
Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge tome in front
of me, which had been opened at the article "Weissmann versus Darwin," with the sub
heading, "Spirited Protest at Vienna.
Lively Proceedings."
My scientific education having been somewhat neglected, I was unable to follow
the whole argument, but it was evident that the English Professor had handled his
subject in a very aggressive fashion, and
had thoroughly annoyed his Continental colleagues.
"Protests," "Uproar," and "General appeal to the Chairman" were three of the first
brackets which caught my eye.
Most of the matter might have been written in Chinese for any definite meaning that it
conveyed to my brain.
"I wish you could translate it into English for me," I said, pathetically, to my help-
mate. "Well, it is a translation."
"Then I'd better try my luck with the original."
"It is certainly rather deep for a layman."
"If I could only get a single good, meaty sentence which seemed to convey some sort
of definite human idea, it would serve my turn.
Ah, yes, this one will do.
I seem in a vague way almost to understand it.
I'll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible
Professor."
"Nothing else I can do?" "Well, yes; I propose to write to him.
If I could frame the letter here, and use your address it would give atmosphere."
"We'll have the fellow round here making a row and breaking the furniture."
"No, no; you'll see the letter--nothing contentious, I assure you."
"Well, that's my chair and desk.
You'll find paper there. I'd like to censor it before it goes."
It took some doing, but I flatter myself that it wasn't such a bad job when it was
finished.
I read it aloud to the critical bacteriologist with some pride in my
handiwork.
"DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER," it said, "As a humble student of Nature, I have always
taken the most profound interest in your speculations as to the differences between
Darwin and Weissmann.
I have recently had occasion to refresh my memory by re-reading----"
"You infernal liar!" murmured Tarp Henry. --"by re-reading your masterly address at
Vienna.
That lucid and admirable statement seems to be the last word in the matter.
There is one sentence in it, however-- namely: 'I protest strongly against the
insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a
microcosm possessed of an historical
architecture elaborated slowly through the series of generations.'
Have you no desire, in view of later research, to modify this statement?
Do you not think that it is over- accentuated?
With your permission, I would ask the favor of an interview, as I feel strongly upon
the subject, and have certain suggestions which I could only elaborate in a personal
conversation.
With your consent, I trust to have the honor of calling at eleven o'clock the day
after to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. "I remain, Sir, with assurances of profound
respect, yours very truly,
EDWARD D. MALONE." "How's that?"
I asked, triumphantly. "Well if your conscience can stand it----"
"It has never failed me yet."
"But what do you mean to do?" "To get there.
Once I am in his room I may see some opening.
I may even go the length of open confession.
If he is a sportsman he will be tickled." "Tickled, indeed!
He's much more likely to do the tickling.
Chain mail, or an American football suit-- that's what you'll want.
Well, good-bye.
I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning--if he ever deigns to
answer you.
He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous character, hated by everyone who comes
across him, and the butt of the students, so far as they dare take a liberty with
him.
Perhaps it would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all."