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 thumbs? And why?" But he is only a very inferior sort of official indeed, a mere clerk of the post, and he has all the guarded reserve of your thoroughly unoriginal man. "You are not the two persons I ascertained you were," he says, with the note of one resigned to communion with unreason; "because you"—he indicates me—"are evidently at your residence in London." I smile. "That gentleman"—he points a pen at the botanist in a manner that is intended to dismiss my smile once for all—"will be in London next week. He will be returning next Friday from a special mission to investigate the fungoid parasites that have been attacking the cinchona trees in Ceylon."

The botanist blesses his heart.

"Consequently"—the official sighs at the burden of such nonsense, "you will have to go and consult with—the people you ought to be."

I betray a faint amusement.

"You will have to end by believing in our planet," I say.

He waggles a negation with his head. He would intimate his position is too responsible a one for jesting, and both of us in our several ways enjoy the pleasure we poor humans have in meeting with intellectual inferiority. "The Standing Committee of Identification," he says, with an eye on a memorandum, "has remitted your case to the Research Professor of Anthropology in the University of London, and they want you to go there, if you will, and talk to him."

"What else can we do?" says the botanist.