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    The Lost World
    The Lost World
    The Lost World
    Ebook279 pages4 hours

    The Lost World

    By Arthur Conan Doyle

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A dangerous expedition into the Amazon Basin reveals a land of living dinosaurs in this classic science fiction novel by the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

    When Professor Challenger, a famous paleontologist, reports that he has discovered dinosaurs living on a remote plateau in South America, he is met with ridicule from the scientific community, particularly his rival, Professor Summerlee. With the help of a young reporter and an experienced adventurer, the two academics make a return trip to the Amazon Basin in order to verify Challenger’s claims. But what they encounter there is more incredible—and dangerous—than anyone thought possible.

    Successfully reaching the remote plateau Challenger described, the expedition team is soon trapped in a land of pterodactyl attacks and dangerous tribes of ape men. Their findings will turn the scientific world on its head . . . if only they can get out alive.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateMar 17, 2020
    ISBN9781504060806
    Author

    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish writer and physician, most famous for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes and long-suffering sidekick Dr Watson. Conan Doyle was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.

    Read more from Arthur Conan Doyle

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    Reviews for The Lost World

    3.5/5

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    • 1/5
      Review of the LATW play, not the book.
      What was the target audience here? It's beyond a camp re-imagining of a pulpy adventure story, and into active contempt for the material. Features comedy on the level of a dinosaur burping ominously, so you'd think it's for small kids. But then it also features a "funny" mexican guide shouting "Ay Chihuahua" as he's shot to death. And a native nonsense language that includes a "boom shaka-laka" at the female companion to be read as innuendo.
      What were they thinking?
    • 4/5
      Another nostalgia listen - I'm pretty sure I was first given this to read in school (40 years ago!). Which surprises me a little - but the 80s were a different world :)
      It's very much of its time (1910s) with the attitudes of that time but it's still pretty enjoyable too.
    • 4/5
      Great fun.
    • 2/5
      Quick read, lots of fun at parts. Horribly racist 105 years after publication.
    • 5/5
      The all-time Doyle classic about exploration and dinosaurs, by way of the late Victorian era. If Doyle ever came close to breaking with his identification, it was with arrogant, bombastic Professor George Edward Challenger. Just the idea of a South American tepui offering a refuge to dinosaurs who survived their extinction elsewhere.... Just great. I've read this book six times or so over the past 50 years since learning to read and may find myself doing it again. Don't miss.
    • 3/5
      Arthur Conan Doyle. It didn't really hold up well. I guess it is just to familiar and dated.
    • 3/5
      Most people when they think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle think of his sleuth Sherlock Holmes and trusty sidekick Dr. Watson. (I’ll admit that I do, too.) But, Doyle wrote more than just mysteries. The Lost World is about Professor Challenger finding what he believed to be a plateau in an unexplored region of South America which still held living dinosaurs.Challenger returns to England where, of course, no one believes there are actually still dinosaurs roaming the Earth. He enlists the help of a reporter who is trying to prove the woman he is in love with that he is more than just a measly reporter, a professor of Anatomy by the name of Summerlee, and Lord John Roxton a sportsman and traveler. Shortly after the crew was assembled they began their journey from England to South America and down the Amazon River.Eventually they reach the point at which Challenger points out the great plateau. There is however no way to get up there as they only way up had been blocked off. After trial and error they find themselves on top of the plateau, trapped no less because of unforeseen events. They find though that Challenger was indeed correct. There were dinosaurs living on the plateau. There were also creatures, a cross between an ape and a human, which were smart and managed to capture Challenger and Summerlee.It was during this capture that the crew found that there also happened to be a tribe of natives who lived on the plateau as well. The natives claim not to know of a way off the plateau, or don’t want to help the crew off (after many failed attempts). Eventually, a young native takes pity on them and shows them the way.They make their way back to England with their findings and the reporter who wrote down an account of the entire trip to be put in to print. I think I’ll leave out the ending and make you read it if you are curious enough to want to find out.While I enjoyed reading this book, it wasn’t quite different than what I was used to when reading Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Challenger and Holmes have many of the same qualities. I would say, however, if you liked Holmes than you should giveThe Lost World a read.
    • 3/5
      Professor Challenger's descriptions of a pre-historic culture with animal life somewhere in the jungles of South America is met with derision by the scientific community. It is decided Professor Summerlee, his chief opponent, along with Lord John Roxton and newspaper reporter Edward Malone will accompany him on an expedition to investigate the claim. The tale is told through the eyes of Malone who sends letters back to his editor by a faithful watchman who stays on the opposite side of their destination plateau. They fell a tree to gain entrance to the plateau, but it falls in the gorge, leaving their only connection to the other world a rope which can deliver supplies or letters but not get them back across. They decide to accomplish their mission and then worry about a means to exit the plateau. They encounter a pterodactyl almost immediately. They encounter many dangers and adventures on this well-preserved plateau, including some "half-men, half-ape" creatures which could be the "missing link." I'll leave the rest of the story and adventures for your enjoyment along with their reception upon their return. I'm not a fan of science fiction, but I decided to give this summer AudioSync offering a try since it was authored by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This tale is very mild in comparison to many of today's science fiction offerings because of the genre's evolution over time. The adventure seemed to appeal to the interest in Darwinian theory at the time of the book's writing. The book was narrated by Glen McCready who seemed to have the perfect voice for Professor Challenger.
    • 4/5
      Overall, this was a fun book, I just wish it had revolved more around the dinosaurs and less about the people and ape-men living on the plateau.
    • 5/5
      Funny book, fast read that is just fun. A little dated but to me it adds to the charm.
    • 3/5
      Well-written and well-told. The characters were engaging and the scenes vivid, and I was definitely pulled in. But the protagonists' decisions at a certain point became disturbing, and I'm not convinced that the author didn't mean to endorse such decisions or the ideologies driving them.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big fan of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, but I didn't realize he'd written a series of science fiction stories as well. This is the first of his Professor Challenger books, and it's thoroughly delightful to read. I won't spoil the plot, but will say there are interesting creatures, vicious battles, and raucous scientific debates aplenty. I'll probably end up reading this one aloud to the kids and may even look for one of the film versions of the story. It's a lot of fun.
    • 4/5
      The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a model for adventure stories in science fiction. The book influenced Michael Crichton in his creation of the LOST WORLD (Jurassic Park).
      Edward Malone, a reporter for the Daily Gazette, but finds no real excitement in his role. Ed wants to woo Gladys, but Gladys wants to marry a romantic hero. Gladys does not see Ed as a knightly figure, at least not yet. So Ed must find his romantic quest in the name of his beauty Gladys.
      Questions Doyle poses are: will Ed come home a hero? Will this quest earn the right to Gladys’s love? What lost world will Ed find in the Amazon? And what about the dinosaurs and the primitive humans, will he find the missing link?
      The book was published in 1912, and exhibits the world of Victorian Empire on the move. British empire was attempting to find “a dreamland of glamour and romance, a land where we had dared much, suffered much, and learned much—OUR land, as we shall ever fondly call it.*” Caveat lector, the ideas of the Victorian Era are not of our own, and may offend those with politically correct notions.
      But this book is a great adventure and I believe a good book for young readers.

      *Doyle, Arthur Conan (2011-03-30). The Lost World (Kindle Locations 2705-2706). Kindle Edition.

    • 5/5
      A timeless adventure story

      There are many reasons why this book is often considered to be a classic. The descriptive and intimate way that the story is told, the interpersonal relationships between the memorable characters and the underlying thread of humor which weaves through the tale, will guarantee it a place in collectors' bookshelves for many years to come.
    • 5/5
      This, in my opinion is Conan Doyle's best work. Professor Challenger presents a more compelling and entertaining character study than does Sherlock Holmes.
    • 2/5
      Conan Doyle has few greater partisans than me, but this is dreadful. (12.29.06)
    • 5/5
      this book is for anyone who has a spirit of adventure!!!!the dinosuar aspect is also really cool so if you love dinosaurs give this book a try!
    • 4/5
      This was a delightfully fun read. It was true to the form of a boy's adventure novel of it's era.
    • 4/5
      As you would expect from Mr. Conan Doyle, a rousing story well told. I've seen any number of movies based (some quite loosely) on the story line, so the story was familiar to me, but a very enjoyable read.
    • 3/5
      Forget about the science, look beyond the imperialistic racism (simply a "given" at the time this was written), and just go along for the ride, and you'll have fun. The Lost World is what Monty Python characterized as a "ripping yarn."

      I have to admit, though, that once ape men were introduced to the story, it got a bit less fun. In fact, a slaughter is perpetrated which is pretty ugly. But that again, is something which likely wouldn't have been questioned by contemporaries of Conan Doyle's.

      As problematic as the book is, however, it's much better than the cinematic treatments that have been made of it. As a kid, I remember loving the Irwin Allen production, even with its kitchy dinosaurs consisting of iguanas with fins glued on their backs. But the book evidences that Claude Rains was clearly miscast as Professor Challenger. Needed instead someone like Robby Coltrane doing his Hagrid role--except crankier. But if the movie had written the Challenger role as the book portrays him--cantankerous and a bloviating egotist--as a kid I'd probably have been scared by him and stayed away.
      Loved the blowhard as a adult, though!
    • 5/5
      Read a few times as a teen and then again a few years ago. Rousing good adventure, what ho? Rich commentary on evolution and race, too.
    • 4/5
      Good book. A nice classic, but a little dated it seemed.
    • 2/5
      Good characters, but bogs down in too much narrative.
    • 4/5
      I'd read Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and had no idea that he was the author of this one until I stumbled across it on DailyLit. Very entertaining and fun, with the usual pitfalls of some unfortuante racist language due to the time in which it was written. Doyle knows how to tell a clean story without using extra words, even when he was world-building. Good stuff.
    • 3/5
      A quick read. Lots of action, dinosaurs, primitive tribes and weird beasties. Not bad but nowhere near as good as his Sherlock Holmes stories.
    • 4/5
      Professor Challenger goes on an expedition to an isolated plateau in South America where he is shocked to discover that dinosaurs still exist. Arthur Conan Doyle's science fiction series.
    • 4/5
      Still a surprisingly readable and fun adventure yarn, that doesn't really show its age, despite the cheerful racism throughout. The adventurers' willingness to participate in genocide and slavery is a bit much for modern sensibilities, but we must take the story in the spirit in which it was intended.
    • 3/5
      A good, and interesting, Ripping Yarn but spoiled for modern readers by the racism, sexism, classism throughout. Of course, like so many of these type of stories, it's of its era and I wouldn't like to see it edited for greater political correctness. I enjoy Ripping Yarns, on the whole, but some have so much of these outdated opinions that it becomes too intrusive to read comfortably and this one was verging on that level but it was leavened somewhat by the humour and excitement of the story.
    • 4/5
      Intriguing tale of formidable Professor Challenger's discovery of Maple White Land and how he convinces
      his two colleagues and a love struck journalist to venture back into that terrifying terrain. The conflicting
      characters are memorably contrasted throughout their journey, with elements of both Sherlock and Watson.

      Story acts as a prologue to Crichton's Jurassic Park with the poisoning attack birds and monstrous dinosaurs.

      Too much trophy and specimen killing were balanced by the finale flying!

      Lovely wit:

      "Lord John merely scratched his scanty locks with the remark that he couldn't put up a fight
      as he wasn't in the same weight or class."
    • 5/5
      The Lost World was both my first foray into reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and my first experience reading a full-length e-book. First of all, my impressions of the electronic format for reading have been significantly improved by this experience. Although I still would prefer to read with a book in hand, I can appreciate the portability and convenience of this medium. I do not own an actual e-reader, so when I one day do own one, I may have to increase my current liking of the electronic format, but suffice it to say for the time being that I did not hate this format and using the Kindle for PC format provided by Amazon.com I enjoyed the fact that I could access my "book" at the place that I had left off from any of my computers whether at home, work or traveling.

      My opinions of the novel itself could not be more glowing. For such a short novel, I am amazed that I found such richness in the characters, storyline, prose, action and content as I was exposed to in The Lost World. Doyle has done an amazing job of creating unique, interesting and fully fleshed out characters. The story contains plenty of excitement and adventure and most of his scientific reasoning is plausible especially considering the time in which the novel was written.

      I had always had it in mind that I needed to read the Sherlock Holmes stories of Doyle but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Now I know that I must read more of his works, not only the Holmes stories but now the Challenger series as well. Professor Challenger is one of the most outlandish, boisterous and absolutely wonderful characters in literature and I am a bit surprised that I really hadn't heard too much about the character before reading this besides in another GoodReads members' review that prompted me to read this in the first place.

      Overall, a fun well-written novel that transcends it's age and really doesn't feel terrible dated that I thoroughly enjoyed! (And yes, I will be reading more books in e-book format as well.)

    Book preview

    The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle

    Chapter I

    There Are Heroisms All Round Us

    Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to The Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority.

    For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true standards of exchange.

    Suppose, he cried with feeble violence, that all the debts in the world were called up simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted upon,—what under our present conditions would happen then?

    I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting.

    At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind.

    She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,—perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure—these, and not the unshrinking gave and frank reply, are the true signals of passion Even in my short life I had learned as much as that—or had inherited it in that race memory which we call instinct.

    Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold and hard; but such a thought was treason. That delicately bronzed skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,—all the stigmata of passion were there. But I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. However, come what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She could but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.

    So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling reproof. I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you wouldn’t; for things are so much nicer as they are.

    I drew my chair a little nearer. Now, how did you know that I was going to propose? I asked in genuine wonder.

    Don’t women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares? But—oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don’t you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face as we have talked?

    I don’t know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with—with the station-master. I can’t imagine how that official came into the matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing. That does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my breast, and—oh, Gladys, I want—

    She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to demonstrate some of my wants. You’ve spoiled everything, Ned, she said. It’s all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity! Why can’t you control yourself?

    I didn’t invent it, I pleaded. It’s nature. It’s love.

    Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt it.

    But you must—you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you were made for love! You must love!

    One must wait till it comes.

    But why can’t you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?

    She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand—such a gracious, stooping attitude it was—and she pressed back my head. Then she looked into my upturned face with a very wistful smile.

    No, it isn’t that, she said at last. You’re not a conceited boy by nature, and so I can safely tell you it is not that. It’s deeper.

    My character?

    She nodded severely.

    What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really, I won’t if you’ll only sit down!

    She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my mind than her whole hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black and white!—and perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down.

    Now tell me what’s amiss with me?

    I’m in love with somebody else, said she.

    It was my turn to jump out of my chair.

    It’s nobody in particular, she explained, laughing at the expression of my face: only an ideal. I’ve never met the kind of man I mean.

    Tell me about him. What does he look like?

    Oh, he might look very much like you.

    How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I don’t do? Just say the word,—teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, theosophist, superman. I’ll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only give me an idea what would please you.

    She laughed at the elasticity of my character. Well, in the first place, I don’t think my ideal would speak like that, said she. He would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a silly girl’s whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife’s life of him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? These are the sort of men that a woman could worship with all her soul, and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds.

    She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down the whole level of the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on with the argument.

    We can’t all be Stanleys and Burtons, said I; besides, we don’t get the chance,—at least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try to take it.

    But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances. You can’t hold him back. I’ve never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done. It’s for men to do them, and for women to reserve their love as a reward for such men. Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. It was blowing a gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have envied her! That’s what I should like to be,—envied for my man.

    I’d have done it to please you.

    But you shouldn’t do it merely to please me. You should do it because you can’t help yourself, because it’s natural to you, because the man in you is crying out for heroic expression. Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?

    I did.

    You never said so.

    There was nothing worth bucking about.

    ‘I didn’t know. She looked at me with rather more interest. That was brave of you."

    I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are.

    What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. But, still, whatever your motive, I am glad that you went down that mine. She gave me her hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it. I dare say I am merely a foolish woman with a young girl’s fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man!

    Why should you not? I cried. "It is women like you who brace men up. Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men ought to make their own chances, and not wait until they are given. Look at Clive—just a clerk, and he conquered India! By George! I’ll do something in the world yet!"

    She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. Why not? she said. You have everything a man could have,—youth, health, strength, education, energy. I was sorry you spoke. And now I am glad—so glad—if it wakens these thoughts in you!

    And if I do—

    Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. Not another word, Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago; only I hadn’t the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.

    And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing the Camberwell tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager determination that not another day should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who—who in all this wide world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was to take, or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it?

    And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet there would have been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the settled determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest which should be worthy of my Gladys! Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.

    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 Ralkans 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—‘Société Beige, American Academy of Sciences, La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President Palæontological 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. Recrealions: 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 doun 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 cock-and-bull story from South America.

    What story?

    Oh, it was rank nonsense about some queer 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

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