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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Missing Link, by Edward Dyson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Missing Link
+
+Author: Edward Dyson
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2005 [EBook #17129]
+[Last updated: August 11, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MISSING LINK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter O'Connell
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MISSING LINK
+
+BY
+
+EDWARD DYSON
+1922
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+DR. CRIPS'S HEALING MIXTURE.
+
+HIS Christian name was Nicholas but his familiars called him Nickie the
+Kid. The title did not imply that Nicholas possessed the artless gaiety,
+the nimbleness, or any of the simple virtues of the young of the common
+goat. Kid was short for "kidder," a term that as gone out recently in
+favour of "smoodger," and which implies a quality of suave and
+ingratiating cunning backed by ulterior motives.
+
+The familiars of Mr. Nicholas Crips were a limited circle, and all
+"beats," that is to say, gentlemen sitting on the rail dividing honest
+toil from open crime. They were not workers, neither were they thieves,
+excepting in very special circumstances, when the opportunity made
+honesty almost an impertinence. The sobriquet coming from such a source
+acquires peculiar significance. The god-fathers of Nickie the Kid were
+all experts, and obtained bed and board mainly by exercising the art of
+dissimulation. To stand out conspicuously as a specialist in such company
+one needed to possess very bright and peculiar qualities.
+
+Mr. Nicholas Crips was blonde, bony man perhaps five feet nine in height,
+but looking taller because of the spareness of his limbs. This spareness
+was not cultivated, as Nickie the Kid was partial to creature comforts,
+but was of great assistance to him in a profession in which it was often
+necessary to profess chronic sickness and touching physical decrepitude.
+Mr Crips despised whiskers, but, as shaving was an extravagant
+indulgence, his slightly cadaverous countenance was often littered with a
+crisp, pale stubble, not unlike dry grass.
+
+To-day Nickie wore a suit of black cloth. It had once been a very
+imposing suit, and had adorned a great person, but having fallen on evil
+days, was dusty and rusty, while the knees of Mr. Crips poked familiarly
+through a long slit in each leg of the stained trousers. The frock coat
+went badly with the damaged tan boots and the moth-eaten rag cap Nicholas
+was wearing.
+
+Mr. Crips was making back-door call, and telling housewives what the
+doctors at the hospital had said about his peculiar ailment which, it
+appears, was an interesting heart weakness.
+
+"Above all, I must be careful never to over-exert myself, madam--those
+are the doctor's orders," said Nickie, in his sad, calm way. "The
+smallest excitement, the slightest strain, and my life goes out like
+that." Nickie puffed an imaginary candle with dramatic significance.
+
+This was the preliminary to a mild appeal for creature and medical
+comforts, and it had two objects--to open the soul to compassion, and bar
+all considerations of manual labour.
+
+Our hero's manner with women was a gentle manly deference; his begging
+showed no trace of servility, but he was always polite. He accepted
+failure with good grace, and did not resent scorn, abuse, or even
+violence from intended victims. He was rarely combative. Fighting was not
+his special gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he
+found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was,
+never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat,
+fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all
+failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish
+self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients;
+but, here and there, a student of human nature found it delightfully
+whimsical. Sometimes it appeared that this spice of egotism sprang from a
+blackguardly sense of humour that found joy in the abounding weaknesses
+and simplicity of the people he imposed upon, but, on the other hand, it
+would be sufficient to show that Mr. Crips was inspired only with gross
+selfishness or to comprehend that the stability of society depends upon
+fair dealing and faithful labour.
+
+Nevertheless there were occasions when Nickie the Kid deliberately
+undertook to earn his daily bread. For a week he served as waiter in a
+six penny restaurant. He had been a "super" in drama and a practical
+crocodile in pantomime and was long in the employ of a fashionable
+undertaker as second in command on the hearse. In this latter billet he
+had to keep his hair dyed a presentable black, but otherwise the duties
+were light, and Nickie might still have been useful mute, only that he
+had the misfortune to get drunk at the funeral of an eminent politician
+and behaved himself in a way obnoxious to the other mourners.
+
+Some credit must be given to Crips for the above in view of the fact that
+he had long, since discovered how unnecessary work was to a man free of
+prejudices and unhampered with conscience. Every man should be master of
+his own conscience, and the exactions of conscience should be subordinate
+to the needs of the body. That was a large part of Nickie's philosophy,
+and he had acted up to it with marked success, but this morning
+housewives were incredulous and tough, and our hero was faring badly.
+
+He entered the yard of Ebonwell, the chemist, and was about to knock,
+when his eye fell upon a well-worn Gladstone bag full of small bottles.
+In the course of long experience as a beat, Nickie had learned the value
+of prompt action. He gently snapped up the bag, and jauntily to the gate.
+Here he collided with a female entering in a hurry.
+
+"Was yeh wantin' anythin', mister?" said the woman suspiciously.
+
+"Good morning, madam," said Nickie, with unction. "Can I tune your piano
+this morning?" His manner was most courteous, he smiled kindly, but he
+did not invite attention to the bag.
+
+"No yeh can't," snapped the woman, "an' a good reason why--coz we ain't
+got a pianner to toon."
+
+"A pity," said Nickie, suavely, "a pity, madam. No home should be without
+the refining influence of good music."
+
+The woman passed in as Nickie passed out, and the latter looked back over
+the gate, and said, "Good morning, lady," with profound respect.
+
+Nickie must have forgotten all about his weak heart; the dash he made out
+of that right-of-way, across the street, down a second right-of-way, and
+into a public garden, would not have discredited a trained pedestrian. An
+hour later Mr. Crips was seated in a secluded spot on the river bank,
+taking stock. He possessed one very second-hand black bag and four dozen
+four-ounce bottles. The Kid's intention in the first place had been to
+dispose of the loot at the nearest marine store, but Nickie was a man of
+ideas, and one had come to him there in his loneliness. He hid his bag of
+bottles, and wandered into the city. After several misses he succeeded in
+begging sixpence to buy cough drops for his influenza.
+
+He paid threepence for the cough drops at a convenient hotel, and took
+them in bulk. With his change he purchased threepence worth of small
+corks. Back at the Yarra Nickie the Kid dissolved one of three gingernuts
+he had taken from the bar lunch in a two pound jam tin of river water,
+and started to fill his bottles. He filled one dozen.
+
+Having explained to a small knot of brother professionals that he needed
+change of air and scenery, Nickie the Kid started out of town that
+afternoon. We next discover him seated under a spreading gum in a
+pleasant sweep of sunny landscape at Tarra, with his trousers in his
+hands, carefully and systematically repairing and renovating the same.
+The frock coat had been "restored," the rag cap was abandoned in favour
+of a limp bell-topper, contributed by the family of a benevolent
+clergyman, and the tan boots were artistically blacked with stove polish.
+Nickie the Kid warbled at his work with the innocent gaiety of a bird.
+
+It was not yet sundown, and Nicholas Crips was clothed, and stood with
+his black Gladstone in his right hand, prepared for the campaign. He had
+had a clean shave, and his face had a sort of calm dignity touched with
+benevolence. He turned round, examining himself, and the coat-tails
+floated gracefully in the breeze.
+
+"Eminently satisfactory," said Mr. Crips. "And now for business." He
+cleared his throat, as if about to commence an oration, and set off at a
+smart pace towards the farm-house whose chimneys peeped over the hill.
+
+A dog barked surlily as Nickie passed up the garden walk, but Nickie knew
+the character and quality of dogs, no beat better, and he recognised this
+one as harmless to man. A woman came to the door, wiping her fat, red
+arms on a canvas apron.
+
+"A very good day to you, madam," said Mr. Crips, lifting his belltopper
+with some grace, and bowing slightly. "I have taken the liberty of
+calling upon you to bring under your attention my celebrated
+medicine--Dr. Crips's Healing Mixture, for coughs, colds, consumption
+indigestion, biliousness and all bronchial complaints."
+
+He took a bottle from his bag and shook it invitingly, his voice was
+respectful and very persuasive, but by no means subservient. Nickie's
+voice was his most valuable possession; it had a note so winning, so
+appealing, that it was only with strong effort that ordinary people could
+resist it.
+
+"No," said the woman, "we ain't got any o' them complaints."
+
+"Headache, earache, toothache, lumbago, Bright's disease?" said Nickie,
+suggestively.
+
+"No." The woman shook her head. "We ain't got nothin' in the 'ouse but
+rhoomertism in me ole man's back. He's bin laid up three weeks with it."
+
+"Dr. Crips's Rheumatic Balm!" exclaimed Nickie, with decision, restoring
+the first bottle to the bag, and producing another of exactly the same
+mixture. "Cures rheumatism in two hours. Gives instant relief in cases of
+neuralgia and sciatica. A little to be rubbed on the affected parts night
+and morning."
+
+The woman took the bottle, examined it closely, shook it up, and said,
+"It looks good."
+
+"It's invaluable, madam," replied Nickie, with quiet conviction. "No
+family should be without it. Two shillings, if you please."
+
+The woman took a bottle, and when leaving, Nickie the Kid turned and
+said, "I shall be back this way in a week, and shall do myself the honour
+of calling on you for a testimonial, if I may?"
+
+At the next farm-house Nickie had a man to deal with. The man began by
+wanting to throw Dr. Crips over the fence, and ended by buying a bottle
+of his Infallible Hair Restorer, and paying him half-a-crown for
+professional advice in the case of a brown cow afflicted with mumps.
+
+Nickie the Kid had put in the busiest day of his varied career, and here
+he rested from his labours. With six and six in his pocket he could
+afford luxuries. That night he slept in a bed at the Harrow Hotel, and
+next morning breakfasted on grilled bacon and boiled eggs. Before
+leaving, he sold the publican two bottles of the world-famous Healing
+Mixture as a pick-me-up.
+
+On the second day the doctor set out to cover as much ground as possible.
+He was astute enough to recognise the wisdom of moving on before his
+customers had time to compare notes. Before noon, he sold six bottles of
+the Healing Mixture for influenza, two bottles of the Rheumatic Balm, and
+one bottle of the same as a certain cure for a peculiar disorder in pigs.
+
+Nickie was going along the main road, heading north, branching off to the
+farm-houses by the way to sell his cure-all. He sold one guileless
+housewife a bottle, assuring her that it would convert brass spoons into
+real silver. A little mercury in a rag helped this trifling deception. On
+the third day Nickie had to buy some gingernuts to make a fresh supply of
+the Healing Mixture, and bottles were running short. He saw fortune
+staring him in the face.
+
+It was about eleven, and Mr. Crips was trudging contentedly along, the
+road, swinging his bag and singing his tender lay, at peace with the
+world, and buoyed with great hopes, when a trap drove up and a voice out
+of the accompanying dust said:--
+
+"That's 'im. That's the bloke!" A man jumped down and advanced to Nickie,
+and laid hands on him.
+
+"You're that doctor bloke what's selling the Rheumatic Balm, ain't yeh?"
+he asked.
+
+Nickie said nothing. Retribution had overtaken him. He knew that. His
+fair dreams fell from him, he sighed deeply, and philosophically, as was
+his wont, abandoned himself to the inevitable.
+
+There were two young men in the trap. They hoisted Nickie to the seat
+behind, and drove on. No explanation was offered, and Mr Crips expected
+none. They would come, he imagined, along with the familiar penalties.
+One of the young men did remark, with cheerful enthusiasm: "You're in fer
+it all right, blokie," but Nickie the Kid only sighed.
+
+Crips recognised the farm-house they drove to as that of the farmer with
+rheumatism in the back, his first customer. One young man ran in with the
+news, and presently reappeared in company with a large, elderly,
+energetic man, who was crying, excitedly: "Where is he? Bring him to me!"
+
+This large man dashed at Nickie the Kid, and fell on him bodily. He was
+followed by the housewife who purchased the Rheumatic Balm, and she also
+fell upon Nickie, who put up a short prayer. But to the doctor's immense
+surprise he found presently that he was not being assaulted, but hugged,
+that it was not curses, but blessings the old couple were showering upon
+his head.
+
+"Lor love yeh, I'll never forget yeh fer this," cried the farmer.
+
+"Come inside an' have a bit to eat," exclaimed his wife.
+
+The pair literally dragged Nickie into the house and dumped him down at a
+loaded table. He was waited upon by a rather nice-looking girl of twenty.
+
+"This is him, Millie," said the farmer, with enthusiasm. "This is Dr.
+Crips what cured yer old dad. Gord bless you, sir."
+
+The girl shook Nickie by the hand, and smiled on him sweetly, and said
+she could never forget the man that cured her dear pa, and all Nickie's
+happiness and his great content came back to him like refreshing waters.
+Dr. Crips stood up straight, he shook hands enthusiastically with farmer
+Dickson.
+
+"So the Rheumatic Balm has set you up again?" he said, heartily.
+
+"Hasn't it, by gum! Look at this." The farmer capered about the room.
+"Every bit o' pain's gone. I'll buy every drop of that balm you've got.
+That's why I had you brought back. But sit down, and eat, man--eat!"
+
+They simply squandered hospitality on Nickie the Kid that night; they had
+neighbours in to see him; they had music, and Dr. Crips sang, and danced,
+and drank, and made love to Miss Dickson out under the elderberries. Out
+under the elderberries, for the edification of Millie Dickson, Nicholas
+Crips was a medical man of high attainments, but the victim of
+extraordinary vicissitudes. It was very touching, most romantic. Nickie
+lied with great splendour. He displayed no little aptitude in the
+character of Don Juan too. Miss Dickson thought him a perfect dear.
+
+Returning to the house for supper, Nickie and the ingenuous Millie
+loitered by the open kitchen window, and Nickie saw and heard things of
+no little interest to him professionally. Farmer Dickson and three
+neighbours were comparing bottles of Dr. Crip's Celebrated Healing
+Mixture.
+
+"Anyhow," said one, "I'll swear his nibs sold me this ez a cure fer pip
+in chickens."
+
+"And he told me this was a dead sure cure fer corns 'n' ingrowin'
+toe-nail," ejaculated another.
+
+"I bought this bottle fer me diabetes," explained Coleman. "He said it ud
+root out diabetes in nine hours."
+
+Farmer Dickson shook his bottle, and looked at it very dubiously. "It
+seems t' me it's all the same mixture," he said. "It looks like it,
+tastes like, 'n' it smells like. Now I come t' think iv it, I ain't too
+sure 'bout these blanky rheumatics o' mine." He reached down his back and
+rubbed himself anxiously.
+
+"I thought my diabetes was a-movin', but they're all back at me agin,"
+said Coleman.
+
+"The chicken died what I gave the mixture to," explained Anderson.
+
+Dickson scowled and felt himself, for as far as he could reach up and
+down his spine. "I'm pretty certain the rheumatics 're comin' back," he
+murmured. "Wow!" he gasped, as a bad twinge took him. "It is back!"
+
+"Tell yeh what," Anderson remarked plaintively, "we've been done."
+
+"He's a blanky fraud!"
+
+"A robber!"
+
+"Let's look him up, 'n' 'ave a word or two."
+
+The farmers seized their sticks. They moved towards the door, but already
+Nickie had begged to be excused, and passed into the night. The stillness
+and mystery of the bush enveloped him.
+
+Next day the neighbours compared notes and bottles, and found that the
+medicine for influenza, consumption, liver disease, indigestion and cold
+feet, the embrocation for rheumatism, sprains, corns, bruises and
+headaches, the cure for pigs, the wash for silvering spoons, and the
+hair-restorer were all the same mixture. Then a great popular demand for
+Dr. Crips set in at Tarra, but by this time Nickie the Kid was back in
+town, amazing his friends with his lavish hospitality in threepenny bars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FAMILY MATTER.
+
+EVEN Nickie's intimates of the wharves and the river banks knew nothing
+of his ancestors or relations. Nickie was naturally reticent about his
+own business; On the point of family connections he was dumb. It was
+assumed that he had had a father and mother at some stage of his career,
+but the evolution of Nickie the Kid from a schoolboy, with shining
+morning face, to a homeless rapscallion, living on his impudence, was
+never dwelt upon by our hero, which is a great pity, as the process of
+degeneration must have been highly interesting.
+
+Certainly, Nickie did not regret his respectable past, if he were ever
+respectable, and it is equally certain that he had no craving for high
+things in the way of tall hats and two-storey houses. He appreciated the
+value of money, since it enabled him to gratify his tastes, but it must
+be admitted his tastes were scandalous in the main.
+
+However, at Banklands Nickie solicited work, laborious and painful work.
+Moreover, he went to the job of his own free will, when sober and in his
+right mind. This seemed to imply an awakening of conscience, a dawning
+sense of his utter uselessness to the body politic, and a desire to
+figure as a useful member of society. On the other hand, it may have been
+a symptom of brain-softening. But it happened to be neither; it was in
+fact a means to a wicked end. On the fading end of a superior suburb,
+where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned off and dwindled,
+and were lost among the gum trees of the original wilderness, Nickie
+found his billet.
+
+The suburb was coming ahead. The motor-car had made it easy and
+accessible to the rich. Splendid dwellings were going up all over the
+place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the
+stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.
+
+Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched the
+busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within
+himself.
+
+"Do these people expect to live a thousand years?" mused Mr. Crips, "that
+they build such solid houses? Or do they regard them as monuments? Look
+at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack under four boards!"
+
+Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake, with
+plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolous as those of a Chinese
+pagoda. It stood within capacious grounds, and proclaimed aloud the fact
+that its proprietor was a rich man, ostentatious of his riches.
+
+"I expect there's a matter of thirty rooms in that house," mused Nicholas
+Crips, "and after all, a man can get just as drunk in a threepenny bar."
+
+Nickie put in a couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well,
+but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate
+making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon induced
+him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound reflection
+lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man working on
+the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion, and seating
+himself on the broken metal, entered into conversation with the two-inch
+mason wielding the hammer.
+
+"Pretty hard work this," ventured Nicholas.
+
+"Blanky hard," assented the stonebreaker.
+
+"Did you ever try the softening influence of beer?" asked Nickie, drawing
+a bottle from his pocket.
+
+"Well, I won't make yeh force it on me," said the stonebreaker.
+
+They divided the liquor like brothers dear, and the stonebreaker
+developed a sudden affection for Nicholas Crips, who after twenty minutes
+casual conversation, introduced his plea.
+
+"Must be splendid exercise for the liver, stoneknapping," he said. "I've
+been troubled with liver complaint lately. Living too high. Could you
+give a man a job?"
+
+"Well," said the breaker, "I got a sorter contrac' t' break so many
+yards. If you'll do it at bob a yard you can get gain' on the other end
+iv th' 'eap."
+
+The price was far below current rates for cutting metal, but Nickie was
+not penurious and grasping. He threw off his tattered coat, and, draped
+in fragments of a shirt, in a pair of trousers, half of which fluttered
+in the breeze, and boots that looked like a collection of fragments, he
+set to work.
+
+Certainly Nicholas Crips did not show any disposition to work himself to
+death. After an hour his employer told him he wasn't likely to earn
+enough to keep a rag-gatherer in toilet soap, but Nickie explained again
+that he was merely exercising his liver, and had no intention of making
+an independence as a breaker of road metal.
+
+Nickie's heap was right opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the
+cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house
+from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping
+at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He was
+particularly interested in a tall, `severe-looking, fair-haired woman,
+who appeared on the balcony for a moment.
+
+Mr. Crips had been at work for about three hours, during which time he
+had perspired a good deal and gathered much dust, for Nickie was
+habitually easy going, and his task, although pursued with no diligence,
+had "taken it out of him" to some extent. He was certainly a deplorable
+scarecrow. A fine, polished carriage, with rubber tyres, drawn by a
+splendid pair of chestnuts, was driven down the side drove by a livened
+menial. It drew up near the centre gates, and Nickie leaned on his hammer
+and waited.
+
+The tall, dignified lady, accompanied by a short, important man in
+immaculate black, came along the path, and approached the open door of
+the vehicle. Nickie advanced carelessly, and intercepted them. He bowed
+grotesquely.
+
+"Good day, Billy," he said, familiarly. He lifted his hat pointedly to
+the lady. "'Ow's yerself Jinny?" he asked.
+
+The lady and gentleman stared at him in utmost astonishment for a moment,
+then consternation seized them, and they made a dive for the vehicle.
+Nickie followed to the door.
+
+"So long, if yer mus' be goin', Willyum," he said, pleasantly. "So long,
+Jinny. How's the old man's fish business?"
+
+"Drive on!" gasped the gentleman. He had the scared expression of one who
+had seen a spectre.
+
+The liveried menial whipped up, and the carriage was swept away. Nickie
+returned to his heap, and for fully two minutes Stub McGuire, his
+employer, gazed at him in speechless, open-mouthed amazement.
+
+"Well, of all the blarsted cheeks!" gasped McGuire, when speech came to
+him.
+
+"Don't mention it," said Nickie.
+
+"Don't mention it!" yelled Stub. "No, iv course not, but what price his
+nibs in the noble belltopper mentionin' it t' th' Johns, an' gettin' you
+seven days fer disgustin' behaviour?"
+
+Nickie smiled inscrutably, and continued his work. When the carriage
+returned, he made an adroit movement, and courteously opened the door.
+
+"'Low me, Jinny, my dear," he said, offering his grimy hand.
+
+The lady stepped down, and passed him disdainfully. The gentleman brushed
+him aside.
+
+"'Ope yeh 'ad er pleasant ride in yer cart, Billy?" said Nicholas.
+
+He followed them to the gate, and called through the bars.
+
+"Very sorry, Jinny, but I carn't haccept yer pressin' invitation ter
+dinner, havin' er previous engagement."
+
+He returned to his work again, smiling sweetly. He seemed to enjoy Stub
+McGuire's horror.
+
+"'Ere, 'ere," said McGuire, "off this job you go if you don't know better
+than to insult people that way. You'll be gettin' me inter mischiff."
+
+"Not at all," said Nickie, "not at all. Surely a man may offer ordinary
+civilities to his friends. Bless my soul, you wouldn't have me cut old
+Billy in the streets, would you? If I didn't speak to Jinny she'd think I
+was angry with her, and cry her eyes out. She has a tender heart, poor
+girl. She is a sensitive soul, and craves for social distinction. She
+looks to me to secure them a footing in exclusive circles, Mr. McGuire."
+
+"I don't know what y're talkin' about," Stub grumbled, "but that's enough
+of it, see?"
+
+Nickie took no notice of his employer's admonitions, however, and when a
+clergyman drove up in a buggy an hour later, our hero intercepted him at
+the gate.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "Would you mind tellin' Willyum inside
+there how Nickie sends him his compliments, and 'opes Jinny's quite
+well."
+
+"My good fellow, you must not be insolent," ejaculated the minister.
+
+"They won't take it as hinsolence," Nicholas explained. "They've er very
+touchin' regard fer me. Tell them. I arsked after 'em, won't yer?"
+
+Even Stub McGuire noticed that Nickie, whose speech was usually
+excellent, adopted the vulgar tongue in addressing the man he called
+Billy, or any of his friends or relations.
+
+Next day, Nickie inveigled three children, who were playing on the lawn,
+and entertained them at the gate with frivolous conversation for nearly
+ten minutes, when the state of affairs was discovered by their dignified
+mamma, who sent a maid flying to the rescue. Nickie took off his hat to
+the maid.
+
+"Tell Willyum," he said, "that bein' 'andy, I'll drop in ter lunch t'
+day, but Jinny's not on no account t' put up a big spread fer me. I'll
+jist take what's goin'."
+
+He finished these remarks at the top of his voice, the girl being
+half-way back to the house.
+
+When the important man in immaculate black came out a little later,
+Nickie saluted him gravely, as between gentlemen, but without deference.
+
+"'Ow's it, Billy?" he said. "You might drop in an' see me this evenin'.
+I'm livin' under th' blackberry hedge back o' your stables."
+
+The stout man passed in silence, and with a great show of dignity. Nickie
+had a busy afternoon. Evidently it was the dignified lady's "day." Quite
+a crowd of people drove up to the gates during the afternoon, and Nickie
+entrusted each with an affectionate and familiar message to Jinny. All
+were horrified at the insolence of the disgusting man, and one young
+fellow kicked Mr. Crips, but our' hero did not seem to mind. He merely
+warned his assailant that he would issue a County Court writ for any
+damages done to his trousers.
+
+On the following morning at about 11 o'clock Nickie entered the grounds,
+his rags fluttering in the breeze, marched to the door and rang the bell.
+To the Napoleonic man-servant who opened to him, he gravely presented a
+tomato can half-full of water, and said:
+
+"Will yer please arsk Bill or Jinny if they'll be so good as to bile my
+billy at the drorin'-room fire. Tell 'em it's Nicholas Crips what makes
+the request. No, thanks, I won't come in, I'm afraid my motor car might
+bolt."
+
+The Napoleonic man-servant threw Nickie off the verandah, and threw his
+billy after him, but this did not deter Nicholas from an attempt to enter
+into familiar conversation bearing on family matters, when he found the
+dignified lady in a summer house.
+
+The lady glared at him in stony horror. "How dare you?" she ejaculated.
+"How dare you?"
+
+"Why, what's wrong, Jinny, old girl." asked Crips innocently, assuming a
+lounging attitude in the doorway. "You find the togs I'm wearin' a trifle
+too negligee, so to speak. They're quite the thing in our set."
+
+"Let me pass!" ejaculated the lady with crushing hauteur.
+
+Nickie was not impressed. He smiled, and continued dreamily: "My word,
+things have moved with you, Jinny. You're gone up like er rocket in er
+reg'lar blaze iv glory, but I can still see yeh in the old shop days. You
+blazed then too, old girl. It wasn't with di'monds, 'twas fish scales,
+but you blazed. You could alwiz put on dog. You sold flathead, Jinny, but
+I give the devil his due--you did it like a duchess."
+
+At this point the Napoleonic footman intervened again. He took Nickie by
+his rags and the nape of his neck, and running him tip-toe out of the
+garden, tumbled him headlong on the grass-grown roadside. Nickie rejoined
+Stub McGuire quite unconcerned.
+
+"That's a new society game, my friend," he said. "The flunkey scored ten
+points."
+
+A few hours later the proprietor of the cement mansion came to his gate,
+and beckoned Nicholas Crips off the heap. Nickie the Kid responded with
+alacrity, and Stub McGuire gazed in cow-like wonder while the two
+discussed matters in the gateway.
+
+Nickie was calling him "Bill," "Billy," and "Willyum," indiscriminately.
+Stub nearly fainted when he saw the gentleman draw a bank-note from his
+pocket, and hand it to Nicholas Crips. Nickie lifted his deplorable hat,
+and said:
+
+"So long, Bill. I'm sorry I can't come an' stay a month. Some other time,
+perhaps."
+
+The gentleman went in, and slammed the gate behind him. Nickie returned
+to the heap, and picked up his coat and donned it.
+
+"I'm handing in my resignation, Mr. McGuire," he said. "You are welcome
+to my earnings, as I intend to live on my means--temporary at least." He
+held up the note.
+
+"A tenner!" gasped McGuire.
+
+"A tenner!" replied Nicholas, "presented by the kind gentleman on
+condition that I emigrate from this suburb and absent myself permanently.
+The worst thing about rich relations, Stub, is that they want whole
+suburbs to themselves; the best is that you can make them pay for the
+privilege of exclusiveness."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MASK BALL.
+
+NICKIE the Kid only observed his agreements and kept honourable promises
+so long as some material advantage flowed from his complaisance. Within a
+month he was again haunting the vicinity of the white mansion. One night
+he leaned against the fence and watched a procession of guests alighting
+from their vehicles. Splendid motors dashed up, and loads of
+gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen quaintly caparisoned were discharged
+at the great iron gates, and went trooping up the path to the flaring
+white residence, blazing like a crystal palace in a fairy tale.
+
+Nickie was not exactly envious, but looking through the iron railing at
+the gay array of lanterns in the vast garden, and the glowing mansion,
+and hearing the hubbub of cheerful voices and the laughter, he had a
+dawning sense that respectability, especially well-to-do respectability,
+had its compensations after all.
+
+He walked to the gate for a better view, and discovered a strange object
+lying on the path. It was a false nose, a large, red, boosy nose, with, a
+length of elastic to hold it in its place. One of the guests had dropped
+it. Nickie put it on in a waggish humour, and stood moralising as three
+pretty Spanish dancers, in charge of a toreador, passed in.
+
+Nickie loved gaiety, waster and rapscallion as he was--sunshine, colour,
+flowers, beautiful women, life, music and laughter shook passions loose
+within him. Another little kink in his brain might have made a poet of
+him, just as the smallest turn of chance might have made a deadbeat of
+almost any poet of parts.
+
+Mr. Crips actually sighed over that vision of fair women, and longed to
+be that happy toreador.
+
+   "Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
+   Before we, too, into the dust descend:
+   Dust unto dust, and under dust to lie,
+   Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End."
+
+The quotation had just escaped our hero lips when a young fellow garbed
+as Romeo, alighting from a hansom, dashed into him.
+
+"By Jove, that was dooced awkward of me--yes, I beg your pardon, I'm
+sure. Should have looked where I was going--what? said Romeo.
+
+"Not at all," answered Nickie politely. "My fault in blocking the path.
+My fault, entirely."
+
+"By Jo-o-ve!" gasped Romeo; "that's a stunnin' make-up, old chap--what?
+Nevah saw a bettah, by gad."
+
+"Make-up?" said Nicholas. Mr. Crips had for gotten his false nose.
+
+"Ya-as," said Romeo. "Your character, you know. A fellah 'd think you'd
+just come from sleeping in a rubbish bin. Yes. Best Weary Willie I've
+seen. But aren't you coming in, dear boy? You're a cart for Dolly's prize
+for best-sustained character, eh?"
+
+"Presently--presently." said Nicholas, smitten with a sudden idea.
+"Waiting for a friend, you know."
+
+Romeo went up the garden path, and Nickie the Kid retired under the
+shadow of the hedge to allow his thoughts to revolve. Romeo's words had
+suggested possibilities. Mr. Crips rarely wasted time making up his mind.
+Three minutes later he was sauntering jauntily up the garden path on the
+heels of a laughing Red Indian set.
+
+It was a fancy dress ball. All the guests were masked or otherwise
+disguised. Nickie had never encountered a softer thing. He determined to
+make a night of it at the expense of the host of "White-cliff." To avoid
+unpleasantness at the door, Nickie boldly climbed up the trellis of a
+vine, and entered the noisy crowded ballroom through an open window,
+rolling head over heels among the guests.
+
+His appearance provoked a shout of laughter. This was the proper way for
+a tramp to enter such a house. It was accepted as a quaint effort of
+humour. Weary Willie was applauded, and his appearance, when he rose to
+his feet, occasioned fresh merriment.
+
+The "make-up" of Mr. Crips was certainly very effective, but with the
+exception of the false nose it was nothing but his ordinary habit. He
+wore a pair of old grey trousers, lashed up with one brace, and belted
+with a strip of red material; between the fringed legs of this garment
+and his broken canvas shoes the tops of socks, one white, the other
+plaid, were plainly visible. The fact that they were only tops, and not
+whole socks, was not to be missed, as they had worked up, and an inch of
+bare ankle protruded. Nickie's coat was an old black Beaufort, from which
+two buttons' hung on grey threads, which was split half-way up the back,
+and from below the tails of which fluttered strips of torn lining. He
+wore no vest, and had on a woman's faded pink print blouse as a shirt. He
+had a linen collar that had long since lost all claims to whiteness and
+all pretence of dignity, and his hat was a small round boxer, with
+scarcely any rim. On one of the buttons of his Beaufort hung a strip of
+ordinary sugar bag, on which he had written with a stub of pencil the
+word "Program."
+
+Mr. Nicholas Crips looked the part to the life. He had not shaved for a
+week, and his lank hair was reaching out in all directions from under his
+ridiculous hat, and from various strands dangled fragments of his last
+couch under the boat shed. Nickie had nothing of the painted,
+unconvincing theatrical accessories of the usual fancy dress tramp; he
+looked real, and his success was instantaneous and complete.
+
+I have endeavoured to show that Mr. Crips was not a diffident man; he did
+not distress himself with scruples; fear of failure in an enterprise of
+this kind never worried him. He walked across the grand ball-room,
+swaggering in his rags, lifted his hat to a Watteau shepherdess who was
+laughing at him from a settee in a recess, and said:
+
+"Would yer darnce with er poor man, kind lydie?"
+
+Again the crowd laughed. A tall Mary Queen of Scots peered at Nickie
+through her lorgnette, and said.
+
+"How very whimsical!" The little shepherdess was a merry spirit, and
+bowed willingly. Nickie wrote "Milk Made" on his absurd programme, and
+the quaintly assorted pair joined in the waltz. How, where and when
+Nickie the Kid had learnt to dance Heaven knows, but he waltzed well, and
+after that he danced with Mary Stuart in a set.
+
+He was particularly attracted by Mary Stuart. She was a fine woman and
+the rakish Nicholas had a discriminating eye where the sex was concerned.
+Mary had a bold eye too, and a breezy manner. She took great joy in the
+tramp.
+
+A feature of Nickie's very humorous and original impersonation of the
+Yarra-banker was his waggish begging. When he had danced, before leaving
+his partner, he assumed a most lugubrious manner, and said:
+
+"Dear lydie, would you kindly assist a pore decayed gent, what's got a
+bedridden wife an' nine starvin' children, all twins? Just a copper,
+lydie. The bailiffs is in, lydie, an' if I don't take 'orne nine-pence
+for the rent they'll seize ther kerosene case, an' ther flour-sack, and
+ther rest iv ther drorin-room furniture, kind lydie."
+
+A gay vivandiere led Nickie to a portly Henry VIII. "Sire," she said,
+"this poor man claims king's bounty for his three sets of triplets. I
+humbly commend him to your majesty."
+
+"Just a trifle to assist a poor man, kind gent," whined Nickie the Kid.
+"Not a morsel iv turkey's passed me lips for seven days. Just a few
+pence, sir, to buy champagne fer me widders and orphans. I don't care
+about meself, kind sir."
+
+King Henry promptly dropped half-a-crown into Nickie's hat. Two, or three
+laughing guests standing about contributed silver. There was an
+impression in the ballroom that the sum of the quaint tramp's collection
+would go to a charity. None but Nickie himself knew the charitable object
+to which the money was to be devoted.
+
+Nickie danced with all sorts and conditions of women. Romeo slapped him
+on the back.
+
+"Splendid, deah boy!" he said. "We been thrown together, you know. Ran'
+into you at the gate--what? By gad, you're doin it well. But I say, who
+the devil are you?"
+
+"I'm Willie' the Waster, kind young gentleman, and I'm residin' under No.
+3 wharf, fifth plank from the corner. Would yer give er trifle towards me
+time-payment furniture, please, sir."
+
+Romeo contributed a shilling. "You're a sport," he said. "They're all on
+to you. Dolly herself's delighted. Yes, you're right as rain for the
+prize, but you might put me on--what?"
+
+"I'm feather-legged Ned, with ther consumptive corf," said Nickie. "Would
+you please give me a shillin' t' pay fer me medicine?"
+
+"No, dash me if I do!" said Romeo, and he went off laughing.
+
+Nickie took champagne with Sir Peter Teazie, Rip Van Winkle, Slender, and
+Henry VIII., and under the influence of the good wine became more
+audacious. He passed the hat with a characteristic complaint wherever a
+few guests were assembled, and in view of the vast amusement he was
+giving was allowed any license in reason. The offerings of the charitable
+he deposited in the tail pocket of his coat, and presently the weight
+dragged at him with a grateful pressure, and the silver clanked as he
+walked. Fortune was not actually staring him in the face, but it was
+hanging on behind.
+
+By one o'clock in the morning Nickie was carrying round a champagne
+bottle in his left hand, from which he refreshed himself, and he was no
+longer able to walk a chalk line as wide as a tram with an certainty, and
+had got into the way of clinging to the curtains and hangings; but this
+was all accepted as part of an excellent piece of caricature, and earned
+our hero some applause.
+
+Just before supper a lady, dressed as Portia, came forward, and pinned a
+neat design of gold laurel leaves and emeralds on the breast of Mr.
+Nicholas Crips. It was the prize for the best sustained character, which
+the host had offered his guests in a frivolous mood. Nickie bowed in
+acknowledgment of applause, and then, with the bottle in one hand, and
+his hat in the other, he appealed to Portia.
+
+"Could you spare a copper, kind lydie, to assist a poor orphan what's
+laid up with lumbago in the feet. I've bin bed-ridden fer ten years,
+lydie, and I lost both me legs in th' battle of Waterloo. On'y a penny
+for the battered 'ero good, kind lydie."
+
+At supper Nickie declined to unmask. He would not remove his preposterous
+false nose. He also excited doubts and misgivings by the depth of his
+thirst and his almost miraculous capacity for food. After supper he was
+simply impossible.
+
+Nicholas Crips in his sober moments was quiet and unpretentious in his
+rascalities, his temperament was naturally mild; but under the influence
+of strong drink he always developed tremendous belief in his own
+magnificence, strutted about and fondly fancied himself a king. He was
+wholly and completely drunk when he charged into the ballroom at two in
+the morning, brandishing a full bottle, and singing uproariously. He
+staggered into the middle of the dancers, whirling his magnum.
+
+"Room" he cried. "Room, there, for King Solomon in all his glory" He
+whirled his bottle again, and the dancers broke before him. A Sir Toby
+Belch got the thick end of the bottle in his natural fatness, and
+collapsed with a groan. "Remove the body!" ordered Nickie, magnificently.
+"D'ye hear me, there, minions? Remove these offensive remain from the
+royal presence."
+
+The guests had retreated against the walls, and Nickie held the floor.
+Nobody believed this to be an artistic effort to sustain the character.
+Weary Willie was as drunk as a lord. He tittered a wild Indian whoop, and
+sang the chorus of "at the Old Bull and Bush," beating time with a leg of
+turkey. Then he turned to the band.
+
+"Play 'God Shave King'." he said. "If yeh don' play 'Go' Shave King' I'll
+have ver heads off 'fore mornin'."
+
+King Henry interposed, he put a restraining hand on Nickie, and spoke
+soothingly to him and Nickie the Kid promptly knocked the poor monarch on
+the head. Then rude hands seized Nickie: he was rushed from the house; he
+was rushed down the path, and hurled into the street.
+
+When all the guests had left the white mansion at Banklands, and daylight
+was streaming in, a weary man-servant interviewed the master of
+"Whitecliff."
+
+"Please, sir," he said; "the--eh--gentleman who was thrown out last
+night."
+
+"Well, what of him?" asked the host, disgustedly.
+
+"He's sleeping in the garden, sir."
+
+The host went out. He found Nickie the Kid sleeping in the Pansy bed, and
+Nickie was pulled to his feet.
+
+"Nicholas!" he gasped.
+
+"That'sh me, Willie," answered Nicholas Crips.
+
+"You blackguard, you intrude into my house and insult my guests, and you
+promised when I gave you that last £10 never to interfere with me again."
+
+"Now Willie, Little Willie," said Nickie, "when did I ever keep my
+promises?"
+
+"Leave my grounds or I'll give you over to the police!"
+
+"Chertainly," said Nickie. "Chertainly, I'll leave the grounds. There's
+always room for me outside."
+
+He took the skirt off his coat, heavy with the contributions of the
+guests, in his hand, and strolled joyously through the gate.
+
+"Ta-ta," he said. "Good-bye, Billy, dear ole Billy, dear, old,
+fat-headed, bumptious Billy!"
+
+Feeling like a king, Nickie the Kid passed down the road, and the morning
+sun glittered on the emblem on his breast. He was still sustaining the
+character.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A TEMPORARY REFORMATION.
+
+NICKIE the Kid presented himself at the front door of a decorous villa in
+an intensely respectable suburb, with sad story. Mr. Crips did not
+address the lady as an unblushing mendicant, he spoke as a man of some
+refinement and keen sensibility, whose bitter complaint was literally
+dragged from him by adverse circumstances.
+
+The lady was touched--her eye moistened.
+
+"That is really very sad," she said. "Come right in, my poor man. You
+must tell your story to my James. James will know how to help you."
+
+Nickie followed the lady without the smallest compunction. She knocked
+quietly at the door of a room and admitted Nicholas to a small apartment
+fitted up like a study. At a table near the window a grave young man was
+seated with writing materials before him.
+
+"Well, mater" he said, "whom have we here? Another of your proteges?"
+
+"I want you to listen to this poor fellow, James," said the lady, "his
+story will touch you as it has touched me. My poor man, this is my son,
+the Rev. James Nippit."
+
+Nickie bowed with a grace that did not belong to his tramp's garments and
+his insanitary and unshaven state.
+
+"Thank God. I have met you, sir," he said, in the voice of a strong man
+whose sorrows have about broken his proud spirit, "if your heart is as
+gentle as that of this sweet lady."
+
+The lady withdrew, and the Rev. James Nippit, who had been eyeing Mr.
+Crips keenly, motioned hit to a chair.
+
+"Be seated," he said, "and tell me your story."
+
+"I am the only son of the Rev. Arthur Crips, of Bolton, Lancashire,
+England," said Nickie. "My father held a good living. He intended to make
+a doctor of me. He brought me up always with that intention, lavished
+much money on me, and from the time I was fourteen I understood I was to
+live the life of a gentleman. Before my education was completed my father
+died, and I found that he had been led into speculation and we were
+ruined. Not only ruined, but disgraced. The shock killed my mother. I
+came to Australia. Unwittingly, without a chance of saving myself, I sank
+and drifted till I found myself a mere tramp. For years I have been a
+tattered, unclean, despised outcast. Yesterday I heard you preach; I was
+outside under a window too despicable a creature to enter among you trim
+flock. Your sermon reminded me of what I was, showed me to myself, made
+the future horribly real to me. I was inspired to fight, to try and work
+myself out of the slough into which I have drifted, and I have come to
+you for help. I am here." Nickie the Kid opened his arms with a dramatic
+gesture--his face was very sad.
+
+"Liar!" said the young clergyman looking Nickie straight in the eye.
+"Liar!" he repeated.
+
+Nickie looked back into the eye of the clergyman. His face betrayed no
+amazement. For a moment it was grave, almost reproachful, and then it
+relaxed into a broad grin. The device had failed--there was no further
+occasion for subterfuge.
+
+"Well," Mr. Crips admitted, "I don't pretend to be a George Washington. I
+may have been betrayed into errors of detail."
+
+"It is as well you admit it," said the Rev. Nippit. "Because I did not
+preach yesterday."
+
+"Very remiss of you," said Mr. Crips.
+
+"And, furthermore, I remember you well. Two years ago I was on a charity
+committee that inquired into your case. You were then the son of a
+Queensland Judge, reduced to poverty by wild living, but anxious to
+return to respectable courses."
+
+Nickie grinned again, and took up his hat. "It is as you say." he said,
+"a truly delicious morning for a stroll. I think I'll go and watch the
+grass grow. Good-day, Mr. Nippit."
+
+The young clergyman arose and interposed between Nickie and the door.
+"You will stay where you are," he said. "Sit down."
+
+Nickie sat down. He placed his hat very carefully on the carpet, folded
+his arms, and crossed his legs. "You are very kind," he said. "May I ask
+if a compulsory lunch goes with this unwarrantable detention?"
+
+"That remains to be seen," replied James. "I am going to offer you your
+choice of two courses. You will either submit yourself to my deliberate
+intention of making a good, clean, respectable, industrious member of
+society of you, or you will walk out of this place into gaol."
+
+Nickie's mind was made up instantly, but he did not capitulate in too
+great a hurry; he talked of conditions, and asked for details of his
+expected regeneration. The Rev. Nippit explained his belief that all men
+had in them the elements of decency, order and religion. Those elements
+only needed proper opportunities for development. He purposed giving
+Nickie the opportunities. He needed a handy man about the house; Nickie
+was to have the job. He would be expected to bathe every day, to shave
+every day, and observe the decencies of the well-ordered home.
+
+"And you are prepared to believe you can reform me?" said Nickie the Kid.
+
+"I am not only prepared to believe it--I am determined to believe it,"
+said the young clergyman, thumping the table.
+
+Nickie smiled again. "I submit myself to the experiment" he said, "but
+promise nothing. I don't think you will succeed. Your intentions are
+good, but mine are not, and it takes two to make a bargain."
+
+Nickie entered his new duties at once. After lunch he took a shovel into
+the garden and toyed with the earth a while, and then he went to sleep
+under a tree. The Rev. Nippit awakened him and talked with him in a firm
+but kindly spirit on the virtues of honest dealings with one's employer,
+and the necessity of industry to keep the world wagging, Nickie'
+graciously admitted that it was all very true. But when set to clean out
+the fowl-house he sat on a stone and held converse with an educated
+cockatoo next door.
+
+That evening, clean-shaven, freshly-bathed, dressed in a cast-off suit of
+James Nippit's, whole if slightly rusty, and robbed of its clerical
+significance, Nickie the Kid attended a religions function with his
+reverend employer. Nickie was orderly, wakeful and fairly attentive. When
+the plate came round he put threepence in, but he took a shilling out. It
+was a useful trick, taught him by an expert in the art of rigging the
+thimble and the pea. Nickie, when he had fairly good clothes, often
+attended church merely to practise it. To-night the exploit was more an
+act of unseemly and impious levity than a crime.
+
+The Rev. Nippit had a theory which he believed would succeed with nine
+malefactors out of ten if exerted under fair conditions it was based on
+kindness, forebearance and the inculcation of excellent precepts.
+
+It is distressing to have to report that Nickie took few pains to
+encourage his preceptor. He was lazy, he sometimes forgot to shave, he
+often forgot to bath, he was not always temperate; but the Rev. James
+bore it all with unconquerable patience. If Nickie was lazy, he talked
+with him like a brother of the twin virtues, industry and thrift; if he
+were unwashed, he explained to him that cleanliness was next to
+godliness: if he seemed to, have gazed too, long upon the wine when it
+was red, or the beer when it foamed in the bowl, the clergyman pointed
+out the advantage of strict sobriety, and earnestly besought Nicholas
+Crips to strive for higher things and the true light.
+
+The Rev. James Nippit was not discouraged. He saw Nickie often clean,
+usually decently attired, generally fairly decent in his behaviour, and
+always respectful in his manner, and believed the seed of righteous was
+sprouting; but Nickie was living comfortably, he was being well fed and
+well bedded, and was careful not to over-exert himself in the pursuit of
+his duties; consequently, it was easy for him to maintain a certain show
+of decorum.
+
+After Nickie the Kid had been under the tutelage of the Rev. James for
+about three weeks, the latter was puzzled to find that Mr. Crips was far
+from penniless. Now Nickie was paid nothing his services, but every week
+a small sum, representing his wages, was paid into the Savings Bank, and
+the deposit was to be transferred to him when he gave proof of complete
+and perfect regeneration. When asked to account for a bottle of whisky
+found in his room, and for a burst of inebriety that represented a good
+deal in spot cash, Nickie quibbled. The quibble was obvious even to an
+innocent soul like James. James was hurt, but he persisted.
+
+Nickie was content to have the experiment continue, but he held out no
+great hopes. "You know," he said, "this is your scheme, not mine. You, as
+it were, forced me to submit. You said you'd reform me in spite of
+myself. Well, I am patient, and you are earnest, but we don't seem to
+make much progress."
+
+For seven weeks the Rev. James Nippit continued experimenting and never
+once lost faith.
+
+James Nippit's pet work was in connection with his reform movement, the
+Young Men's Mission, a design for upraising the youths of the larrikin
+and criminal classes. The Young Men's Mission had attracted some
+attention, people were found willing to contribute to the good work, and
+this fact gave rise to some imposition. Uncertified persons of bad
+character were found to be collecting for the fund and appropriating the
+money to their own use. This caused James much distress of mind.
+
+One Sunday afternoon when driving from his Sunday School the Rev. Nippit
+was hailed by a trusted friend, who said:
+
+"For the last ten minutes I have been listening to a man preaching on the
+sands down there. He represents himself as one of the leaders of the
+Young Men's Mission Movement, and I am confident he is an impostor. If he
+is, it is your duty to expose him."
+
+The Rev. James took up the task eagerly. Leaving the buggy in charge of a
+small boy, the two gentle men joined the crowd, and James soon recognised
+that the speaker was delivering something very like a sermon of his own,
+but seasoning it with a sort of quaint, insolent humour, that suited the
+tastes of his hearers admirably. The crowd laughed and applauded.
+
+"Brothers and sisters," said the speaker, "I have shown you that these
+young men must be divorced from the long-sleever, and rescued from the
+lures of the plump, peroxided barmaid, and the blandishments of Bung, the
+reprobate who runs the pub. I have shown you they must be turned from the
+joys of the 'pushes,' tobacco chewing, and stoushing in offensive
+Chinamen with bricks, and now I appeal to you for the means of doing
+things. Money is said to be the root of all evil, but it is also the
+means of much good. If we want to go to heaven, we must pay the tram
+fare. He who gives quickly gives twice, but it is better still to give
+twice and to give quickly."
+
+As he spoke he moved among the people, taking up a collection in his hat,
+and the people responded liberally. He returned to his little eminence,
+and the Rev. James Nippit forced his way through the crowd, and
+confronted him, flushed, furious, over flowing.
+
+"So," said James, "this is the reward of my kindness? This--"
+
+Nickie was silent for a moment--for the preacher was Nicholas Crips,
+garbed in an old suit of his master's--then he turned calmly and said:
+
+"This gentleman, brothers and sisters, is the Reverend James Nippit, the
+founder of our noble much desire to say a few words. I desire to say
+mission. He desires to say a few words."
+
+"Yes, my good people," cried James, "I do very that the Young Men's
+Mission is one of the finest and most worthy institutions in this city to
+and to express the abhorrence I feel for those villains who make use of
+the credit the Mission has won for their own infamous purposes." He went
+on to explain how the Mission was being robbed, and wound up dramatically
+with the words: "And this man, this man at my side, this man who has
+addressed you in the guise of a minister, is one of the most wicked and
+detestable of the impostors."
+
+But in consequence of his oratorical training, and his clergyman's
+inability to come quickly to a point the denunciation lost its effect,
+for Nickie was not at the speaker's side; he had gone. He had taken the
+Rev. James Nippit's buggy, and driven off, and he carried the collection
+with him.
+
+The buggy was safe in the carriage-house when the Rev. James returned
+home, but Nickie was seeking fields and pastors new.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE INCIDENT IN BIGGS'S BUILDINGS.
+
+THE tall, spare man in rusty, clerical raiment was going from room to
+room in one of the huge, city buildings where Business people, gregarious
+as sparrows, nest in hundreds.
+
+The tall, spare man was cleanly shaved, he wore a very white collar, his
+expression combined benignity with a certain ascetic calm. He carried two
+or three books in his left hand, pressed against his heart with a sort of
+caress, an affection very common with gentlemen of the cloth, for
+Nicholas Crips had a keen eye for character, and his various
+impersonations were fairly true to type, and of no mean dramatic quality.
+
+Nickie the Kid knocked gently at an office door, a peremptory voice
+called "Come in," and he opened the door very softly, entered, closed the
+door very gently behind him, placed his crippled belltopper (rim
+uppermost) on the small counter that walled visitors off from the severe
+gentleman dictating to a blonde typewriter and said, with clerical
+unction.
+
+"Good-day sir. Good-day my dear young lady."
+
+"D-afternoon!" replied the severe gentleman severely.
+
+"Sir. I am here on a mission of charity, if you don't mind. I am the Rev
+Andrew Rowbottom. I am collecting subscriptions for the widow and family
+of the late William John Elphinston, a worthy member of my congregation,
+and a most estimable bricklayers labourer, killed, as you may remember,
+in the execution of his duty on the 14th September last."
+
+"Bless my soil, I can't be bothered with these matters in business
+hours," said the gentleman, and is severity was something terrible, but
+it did not appal the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom.
+
+"I have here a subscription list," continued the intruder suavely. "You
+will find upon it the name of some of our most prominent business
+people."
+
+"I'm busy." said the severe gentleman.
+
+"Need I remind you, my very good sir, that the smallest contribution will
+be thankfully received?"
+
+"Be so good as to close the door after you."
+
+"Certainly, brother, all in good time. Shall we say half-a-crown?
+Half-a-crown is a nice sum. No? A shilling perhaps?"
+
+"I suppose I shall have to pay for the privilege of being left in peace
+to the pursuit of my affairs. Here!!" The severe man slapped a shilling
+on the counter.
+
+"Oh, thank you--thank you so much." said the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom
+effusively. "What name?"
+
+"Confound the name!" snapped the severe gentle man. "Good-day."
+
+"Oh, to be sure, to be sure--good--day," said the Rev. Andrew, and he
+smiled and bowed and slid I trough the half-open door.
+
+Nicholas Crips called at many offices. In a few instances the occupants
+evaded a levy. They were people who had no particular business in hand,
+and could spare the time to hear all the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom persuasive
+arguments and stubbornly resist each plea, but the majority of the men
+were glad to buy the eloquent clergyman off with a small contribution.
+Sometimes office boys were impertinent, and an occasional business man
+was insolent and talked of throwing the suppliant out of the window, but
+Mr. Rowbottom was always suave and conciliatory. He seemed to sympathise
+with the angry individual whose privacy he was forced to break in pursuit
+of a sacred duty.
+
+Nickie the Kid reached the fourth floor. It was very quiet, and most of
+the offices were deserted. He found a pale young typewriter, a slave of
+the machine, in a room rather larger than an alderman's coffin, and
+obtained threepence in coppers for the widow and family of the late
+lamented William John Elphinston. He passed along a dim passage, and came
+to one of the larger apartments fronting the main street. It was
+evidently one of a suite. On the door was a brass plate bearing the name.
+"Henry Berryman."
+
+The Rev. Andrew Rowbottom knocked on his door a meek, appealing summons.
+He received no reply. Confident that he had heard a movement in the room
+Andrew knocked again. Still on answer. The Rev Andrew Rowbottorn turned
+the knob, opened the door a foot or so, and thrust his benignant
+countenance into the room.
+
+The face when it first appeared to the occupant was lit with a smile,
+suffused with a tender benevolence, a moment later it was stark and
+white, drawn with horror, a horror that chilled the blood, and gripped at
+the heart with a hand of iron.
+
+What the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom saw was a tall, handsome,
+fashionably-dressed woman of about thirty-six resting with her back to an
+office table, the position was crouching, her fingers clung to the
+table's edge; her eyes, large, dark, and instinct with mortal terror,
+were fixed upon the stranger in the doorway. At her feet was the body of
+a man, a stout man of perhaps forty. The body lay on its right side, the
+face turned to the floor, and from somewhere in the breast flowed a red
+stream that massed in a dark, clammy pool upon the slate coloured
+linoleum.
+
+Nickie saw a faint, flutter of movement in the limbs of the man on the
+floor, and his eyes rose to the face of the woman again. Her dry tongue
+passed over her parched lips, she seemed to be making an effort to speak.
+On the table near her right hand was a knife.
+
+Nicholas Crips slipped into the room, the door closed softly behind him.
+He had recognised the woman. She was his Mary Stuart of the Mask Ball.
+The man on the floor he remembered in the guise of Henry VIII.
+
+For a terrible half-minute the two stared at each other over the dead
+man.
+
+"You killed him!" whispered Nickie.
+
+The woman tried to moisten her lips again, made an effort to speak, and
+her voice broke in her throat. She nodded dumbly.
+
+"My God!"
+
+"You-you-what are you going to do?" whispered the woman. "Why don't you
+call out?" There was a wild hope in her dilated eyes. "You don't! You
+don't!"
+
+Nickie shook his head. "I don't run for the police?" he said. "No, I am
+not on speaking terms with the police myself."
+
+"You won't seize me, you won't betray me--you, a clergyman!"
+
+"No." said Nicholas Crips.
+
+The woman moved forward, she laid hands upon him, she looked into his
+face.
+
+"He was a villain." she said. "He deserved it, but I am a murderess, and
+you won't--" Her hands gripped him, a new light shone in her eyes.
+
+"Why were you creeping in here?" she said. "You are a thief, That's
+it--you are a thief. Well, listen, there are five thousand pounds' worth
+of diamonds in a little leather bag in his breast pocket!" She pointed
+down at the body. "Five thousand pounds' worth," she said.
+
+"Five thousand!" he gasped. "Five thousand!"
+
+The woman's hand was on the door knob. She opened the door and slipped
+out. The lock clicked as she closed the door behind her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A DEPARTURE INTO ART.
+
+NICHOLAS CRIPS seated-himself on a warm stone, on a convenient boulder
+spread the contents of yesterday's "Age." The "Age" contents on this
+occasion was the lunch of Mr. Nicholas Grips. Nickie had been given the
+meal half-an-hour earlier by a kind soul in one of the suburbs, to whom
+he had pitifully presented his urgent need of sustenance of an inviting
+kind. Very adroitly Nickie the Kid had dwelt upon his necessities, while
+impressing the lady's with the eccentricities of a peculiarly capricious
+appetite.
+
+It was the day after the distressing incident in Biggs's Buildings. Mr.
+Crips was no longer dressed in his clerical garments; they were carefully
+stowed away in a niche in a riverside quarry where he had long kept his
+wardrobe. To-day Nickie was dressed in the rags of a simple mendicant.
+
+The strongly melodramatic adventure the previous day did not seem to
+distress Mr. Crips; he ate heartily, but had only reached his second
+course, which was represented by the chicken, when his attention was
+attracted by a very lean, very pale, hollow-eyed, sad stranger who had
+seated himself on a sloping tree nearer the river, and was eyeing the
+banquet hungrily.
+
+Nickie the Kid, was not selfish. When his own needs were fairly met he
+could be generous with anybody's property, even his own. He tapped the
+chicken's breastbone invitingly with his penknife, and addressed the
+stranger.
+
+"May I offer you a little lunch, sir?" he said urbanely, with quite the
+air of a generous host.
+
+The long, lean man shook his head in mute melancholy, but accepted the
+invitation as an offer of friendship, and approached nearer, seating
+himself on a rock facing Nickie's banquet.
+
+"No, thanks, boss," he said.
+
+"You'll forgive me," said Nickie, after wrenching a mouthful from the
+back of the pullet, "but you look famished."
+
+"I am," answered the stranger.
+
+"Well, help yourself. These garlic sausage sandwiches are superb. Try the
+beer."
+
+Nickie pushed his jam tin forward.
+
+The other shook his head very regretfully.
+
+"I mustn't," he said. "Fact is, my livin' depends on me not eatin', an'
+I've got a wife an' kiddies to support."
+
+Nickie paused with the bottle half-way to his mouth.
+
+"Your living depends on your not eating?" he ejaculated. "What, do you
+earn anything by starving, then? By Jove, that's a quaint idea."
+
+"I earn all I get by starvin'. My name's Cann--Matty Cann, but I'm known
+professionally as Bony-part. Ain't yeh seen me advertisements up the main
+street? I'm drawed on a big poster outside Professer Thunder's Museum iv
+Marvels, I'm the livin' skelington."
+
+"He isn't ruining himself with your upkeep," Nickie.
+
+"No." replied the Living Skeleton. "I'm allowanced off an' I've got t'
+eat on'y what he gives me--that's in our contrac'. If I eat more an put
+on flesh out I go. There's a clause in ther contrac' what sez I'm li'ble
+t' be fired if goes above seven stone seven. The previous livin'
+skelington got the run at Barnip fer breakin' out. He was the only
+original. I'm just a sort iv understudy."
+
+Nickie clicked his tongue sympathetically. "Well," he said, "you might
+pick a bone. That wouldn't be very fattening, and it might delude your
+stomach with the idea you were having something to eat."
+
+Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, took the wish-bone with a few shreds of
+chicken on it.
+
+"Thanks," he said, "it might be a comfort." He sucked the bone fondly.
+
+"You said that Professor Thunder's only original living skeelton broke
+out at Barnip. What happened to him?"
+
+"He went on the spree," said Matty Cann.
+
+"Drink?" queried Nickie.
+
+"No, food. He got at a bar spread in the Shire hall at Barnip, an' afore
+they missed him he ate enough fer ten Shire Councillors. He completely
+rooned that banquet. That was the third time he'd gone on th' spree, an'
+ther Perfesser 'ad warned him if it 'appened again he'd get the shoot."
+
+Nickie the Kid grinned.
+
+"It isn't a Profession that would suit me," he said. "I have an
+instinctive fondness for meals. I knew the travelling show' business was
+a hungry game but I never reckoned on starvation as a means of earning a
+livelihood."
+
+"Oh. 'tisn't all bad," said Bonypart eagerly. "There's th' Missin' Link,
+fer instance; he a glutton. Blime, th' food that Missin' Link gets makes
+me lose all patience, an' sometimes I'd like t' get right up from my
+chair, an' bite him. He's in the 'ospital just now, sufferin' from his
+over--feedin'. It's a judgment on him."
+
+"A monkey in the hospital!"
+
+"Well, he ain't exactly a monkey. He was a man done up something like one
+o' them hoorang-hoo-tangs. Yeh see, part o' Perfesser Thunder's show is
+called the Descent of Man. It contains ten different kinds of monkeys,
+from Spider, a little cove 'bout th' size iv a rat, up t' Ammonia, what's
+a big griller. Th' Missin' Link, he comes next; but as I was sayin' he's
+out iv it just now, bein' ill, an' Perfesser Thunder ud give ez much ez
+two quid er week fee a good, reliable Missin' Link what wouldn't over-eat
+hisself." The Living Skeleton was allowing an inquiring eye to roam over
+Nickie the Kid.
+
+"I was thinkin' yon was just bout th' build fer a Missin' Link," he said.
+
+"What, me?" cried Nickie.
+
+The Skeleton nodded, and Nickie was silent for a moment, lost in thought.
+It was very necessary that Nickie should sink his identity for a time.
+Here was a magnificent opportunity. "Has the Missing Link much to do?" he
+asked.
+
+"No," replied Matty Cann. "He's just gotter he careful not t' over-eat
+hisseif, as I was savin'. Yeh see, people what come in t' th' show gives
+him buns, an' lollies an' things, an' if he's a glutton he' bound t' be
+knocked out."
+
+"What else does he do?"
+
+"Oh, prowls round in the cage."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"An' scratches hisself."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' growls."
+
+"That seems easy."
+
+"Well, it all depends. If yer gifted that way it's easy enough, but real
+scratchin' an' natural growlin' takes a bit o' doin'."
+
+"How's this?" asked Nickie.
+
+He scratched himself in approved monkey style, hopped briskly over the
+stone, then sat up, and growled a deep, guttural growl.
+
+"That's it--that's it, t' th' life!" cried Bonypart in amazed admiration.
+"Why, you're er natural born artist, that's what you are. If I could
+growl an' scratch like that I'd be a Missin' Link t'-morrer. No more
+living skelingtons fer me."
+
+"Look here," said Nicholas Crips seriously, "how long does the Missing
+Link have to remain in the cage?"
+
+"The show opens et one in th' afternoon, close at five, opens again at
+seven, an' closes et arf-pas ten."
+
+"And has the Missing Link to be growling' and scratching all the time?"
+
+"No, not all the time. If there ain't any people in he kin lie in er
+corner on th' stror under his blanket an' sleep, an' sometimes he kin
+stay lyin' on the stror when there's on'y a few people in, so long ez he
+growls a bit, an' stretches hisself. There's a lot in stretchin' hisself
+proper."
+
+"Like this," said Nickie. He reached out one leg, clawed with his left
+hand, and yawned cavernously.
+
+"Th' very identical," said Bonypart admiringly. "You was meant t' be a
+Missin' Link. Y'iv got all th' natural gifts, an' with th' proper hide
+drawn on over yeh, an' yer face made up a bit, nobody ud ever think you
+was anythink else but a true African Missin' Link, born an' bred."
+
+"Are you quite sure the Missing Link has nothing else to do?" asked
+Nickie, cautiously.
+
+"Positive, Missin' Links is scarce; they has pretty much their own way.
+Hold on--he's gotter 'ang a bit by one hand from a bar what goes through
+his cage, an' pretent to be sleepin'."
+
+Nickie the Kid had a contemplative expression "Bless my soul," he said,
+"there are strange ways of earning a living, and I'm not sure that my way
+is the easiest after all."
+
+He drained the bottle.
+
+Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was established in a shop in Bourke
+Street, Melbourne. The shop window was curtained with large posters, one
+representing a tall man, very thin even for a skeleton, sitting at a
+table, tying knots in his limbs. The other pictured a strange, hairy
+monster, half human, half monkey, which was labelled "Darwin's Missing
+Link." On a kerosene case at the door stood Professor Thunder himself,
+appealing to the populace to pause and contemplate the "astonishin'
+marvellous pictorial representations," and assuring five small boys that
+these were "living, speaking likenesses" of the wonders within. "No
+deception, ladies and gents, no deception!" he cried.
+
+Professor Thunder was his own "spruicher;" his eloquence was remarkable,
+his voice had the carrying power of a steam whistle, and the penetrating
+qualities of a circular saw. He was a quaint product of the show
+business, having been born in a museum and bred in an atmosphere of cheap
+theatricals.
+
+"Step inside! Step inside! Step inside!" cried the Professor. "There you
+will behold our extraordinary educational collection of Nature's
+mysteries, known as 'The Descent of Man,' described by the nobility, the
+scientists, and the faculty as the most complete representation of man's
+descent from the apes ever presented to an intelligent audience. There
+you will behold Bonypart, the miraculous, the bone man who has mystified
+all the doctors and amazed millions. There you will behold Ephraim, the
+enlightened pig; Madame Marve, the unrivalled seer, and last, but not
+least, Mahdi, the Missing Link, pronounced by travellers, medical men,
+and Darwinian students to be the one and only authentic and reliable
+Missing Link discovered by mortal man. And the price is only sixpence.
+Step up! Step up!"
+
+The people stepped up, and saw the living skeleton, a thin, long,
+melancholy man sitting on a chair, in limp tights, showing his bony
+knees; the educated pig, that did astonishing things at the bidding of
+Madame Marve; and the Descent of Man, represented by several monkeys of
+varying sizes, a gorilla, and the awe-inspiring Missing Link.
+
+The cage of Mahdi, the Missing Link, was some what dark, and the terrible
+form of the mystery loomed in the dusk, heavy and formidable. He was as
+big as a man, somewhat lank, and covered with coarse hair the colour of
+cocoanut matting. This afternoon, when the early patrons entered, they
+found him hanging limply by one arm, like a great ungainly bat.
+
+"The Missing Link always reposes in this manner in his native wilds,"
+said Madame Marve, in the chaste tones she assumed when imparting
+valuable instruction "but he is otherwise very human in his tastes and
+habits."
+
+"Has 'e a vote, ma'am?" asked a facetious labourer.
+
+A stout lady prodded Mahdi with her umbrella, and he flopped on all fours
+on the floor of his cage, and sprang forward with a hoarse growl,
+reaching a great, hairy paw out of the cage.
+
+"Lor blime, missus, yer ortenter do that to another woman's 'usband,"
+said the facetious labourer.
+
+The people pressed about Mahdi's cage. They threw nuts at him, and
+offered him lollies and cakes, and the Missing Link went through many
+surprising contortions, and rolled about, and capered, and growled in a
+most realistic way, while Madame Marve gave a full and exciting account
+of his capture in the jungles of Central Africa by a party of hunters, of
+whom Professor Thunder was the leader and the conspicuous hero.
+
+"Mahdi was then very young," said Madame. "He has been reared with great
+tenderness, and is now probably the most valuable, and he is the rarest
+animal in the world. Professor Thunder has been offered thousands of
+pounds for Mahdi, but refuses to part with him, preferring to take the
+marvellous monkey-man through the world for the education and edification
+of his fellow-creatures."
+
+Mahdi swung on his bar again, flopped, and then ran up the back wall
+several times, after which he sat in a corner and scratched himself
+industriously, grinning at the people every now and then, or uttering a
+growl that gave the women delicious cold shivers.
+
+The attention of the patrons was next drawn to the educated pig, and
+presently the show-room was empty again for a minute or two. Madame Marve
+addressed Mahdi the Missing Link.
+
+"You must growl more, my boy," she said. "The people like the growling,
+it terrifies them, and they talk to their friends about it. You really
+must keep on growling. I don't care if you don't scratch quite so much,
+but you must growl."
+
+The Missing Link pushed his drab muzzle through the bars.
+
+"Keep on growling," he protested. "Excuse me, madame, but I'm damned if I
+do unless you give me more beer. I've got a throat like a hot-box."
+
+Old friend of Mr. Nicholas Crips would have recognised those crisp tones
+instantly. Nickie the Kid had found his vocation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+AN UNFORTUNATE MEETING.
+
+NICHOLAS CRIPS entered into formal agreement with Professor Thunder, sole
+organiser, director and owner of Thunder's Celebrated Museum of Marvels,
+to impersonate Mahdi, the Missing Link, at a salary of thirty-seven and
+sixpence a week and keep, Nickie undertaking to observe the Sabbath, to
+behave becomingly and in no circumstances to disclose his identity to
+persons outside the show.
+
+The clause entailing strict observance of the Sabbath was a wise one from
+the Professor's point of view, as a previous Missing Link had taken
+advantage of Sunday being an off-day to get unreasonably drunk, in which
+state he betrayed the confidence of his employer, and disclosed the most
+sacred secrets of the profession.
+
+Nickie was assured that the job would be a permanency if he proved
+himself a zealous, efficient Missing Link, and as he understood that even
+when on show Mahdi was expected to do little more than curl up on the
+straw in his cage and growl, he gratefully accepted. The contract was
+signed.
+
+So far Nicholas had discovered the new skin he was compelled to don to be
+the only serious disadvantage attached to his office. It was
+tight-fitting, coated with monkey-like hair, and covered him entirely,
+the face being disguised under an attached mask with a flat nose and
+patches of hair. The skin laced down the spine, but the laces were
+artfully hidden under the fur.
+
+At least Nickie was leading man of the small company. Ammonia (whose cage
+adjoined the more sumptuous one in which Nickie was exhibited, and whose
+open jealousy of Mahdi was a source of no little inconvenience to Nickie
+the Kid) was an item of considerable interest, but the Link was the
+culminating point of the monkey's progress the climax, so to speak, and
+he enjoyed great popularity and many nuts. Possibly the nuts were the
+true source of Ammonia's dislike.
+
+Nickie the Kid had been three days figuring as the star of Professor
+Thunder's Museum of Marvels, and was growing accustomed to his suit, and
+to the situation. The Professor himself was a born vagabond, and his
+wife, Madame Marve, the somewhat plump prophetess, who read fortunes, and
+was mistress of the educated pig, had the Gipsy instinct and took life
+easily. Nickie had a good deal in common with both, and they promised to
+be a happy family.
+
+In his proudest moments Professor Thunder was not likely to overestimate
+the intrinsic value of the Missing Link as he stood, for tucked away
+under the singlet that lay between him and his hairy simian cuticle was a
+store of treasure with the product of which Nicholas Crips dreamed of
+living a life of ease and luxury when certain matters had blown over and
+it was wise for him to resume his proper place in the animal creation.
+
+The murder in Briggs's Building had stirred up a tremendous sensation,
+but as yet no one had thought of associating either the Rev. Andrew
+Rowbottom or the tall, fashionably-dressed lady with the crime.
+
+The show was not yet open for the evening, and Mahdi, the Missing Link,
+was permitted the privilege of free speech, denial of which was one of
+the most painful disadvantages of his public career.
+
+"Well, how're yeh likin' th' grip, Nickie?" asked Matty Cann, otherwise
+Bonypart the living skeleton.
+
+"It is not exacting." said the Missing Link, dreamily, "but it has its
+drawbacks to a man accustomed to finding favour with the ladies."
+
+"Drawbacks," exclaimed Bonypart. "What price living skelingtons? You
+wouldn't believe it, but I'm considered rather a fine man in flesh. It
+almost breaks my poor wife's 'eart t' see me in such redooced
+circumstances. I tell yeh I never thought I'd come down t' this."
+
+Nickie peered at the living skeleton from his cage. "I believe being a
+missing link has its advantages." he said. "After all, a missing link
+does have time off, but a living skeleton has no relaxations."
+
+"Dry up, Mahdi, an' get on your perch," cried Madame Thunder, "The
+Professor's openin' up."
+
+The door was opened, and the Marvels heard Professor Thunder declaiming
+on the astonishing quality of his exhibits.
+
+"Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!" exclaimed the professor in his deep,
+steam-organ tones. "Roll up, and see Mahdi and Marve--Mahdi the Missing
+Link, the great man-monkey, captured in the gloom junge of Darkest
+Africa, the Connectin' link 'tween man an' the beasts; Marve, the Mystic,
+the prophetess, enchantess and Egyptian seer, who will read your future
+in your palm, exhibit her educated pig, and display the occult science of
+the Oriental wonder-workers!'
+
+"Here they come," said Madame, arranging her rich Egyptian costume, made
+by sewing a design of spangles on a curiously-patterned bed quilt.
+
+The Missing Link hooked himself to the crossbar with one hand, drew up
+his hairy legs, and remained suspended in a limp attitude, as two women,
+with frightened children clinging to their skirts, entered the show.
+
+Madame took charge of the audience, and lucidly explained the Darwinian
+theory, beginning with Spider, the tiny ape, and tracing the descent of
+man through Ammonia, the gorilla, to Mahdi the Missing Link, and Mahdi
+romped about the cage, growled and gibbered, poking his amazingly human
+face through the bars for fleeting moments.
+
+When not engaged telling fortunes, performing a few primitive illusions,
+or putting Ephraim, the Educated Hog, through his manoeuvres, Madame was
+anything the occasion required. The Professor had great faith in her. She
+had once carried the show through successfully when the Living Skeleton,
+the Missing Link, Ammonia the Gorilla, and Ephraim were all incapacitated
+through an influenza epidemic.
+
+They had a big evening, the holiday-makers flocked in so freely that
+Professor Thunder abandoned his position as "spruicher," or public
+speaker, and took charge of the interior, acting as explainer and
+interpreter, leaving his little daughter Letitia to take the sixpences at
+the door.
+
+The night was warm, and as the stream of patrons was incessant, Nickie
+the Kid found his duties most oppressive, and had serious thoughts of
+shedding his skin.
+
+Professor Thunder greatly excited the interest of the crowd by announcing
+that a sum of one pound and a silver medal valued at one guinea would be
+given to any person courageous enough to follow Madame Marve's example
+and enter the cage containing Mahdi, the Missing Link.
+
+Nickie was resentful, as this meant a most energetic demonstration of
+savagery on his part, following a fawning and submissive manner, while
+madame, wearing a large sombrero and a man's coat, moved about in the
+cage, cracking a whip.
+
+The people gathered before the cage gazed upon madame with stupid awe,
+while the strange monster capered, or prostrated himself in great
+humility at her bidding. When she had withdrawn, and after the Professor
+had made his prodigal offer, it was Mahdi's duty to stimulate
+ungovernable ferocity, in order to deter any too-venturesome spirits.
+Nickie did his best. He bounded madly round the cage, he tore at the
+straw, tooth and nail, he roared terribly, and snatched furiously at the
+people near the bars. The crowd retreated in terror; all save one woman,
+a grim-looking female with the indurated face of an old-established
+lodginghouse-keeper.
+
+This woman came forward, and jabbed at Mahdi the Missing Link with her
+umbrella. "Gerrout, yeh brute!" she said. Mahdi backed into shades
+carefully provided at the back of the cage, and the old woman reached her
+umbrella through the bars, and made a hit at him. Mahdi seemed to cower.
+
+"A prize of one pound and a silver medal to any person daring enough to
+enter the cage of Mahdi, the man-monkey!" repeated Professor Thunder,
+with great hardihood.
+
+"Wha's that?" gasped the woman.
+
+Professor Thunder repeated his intrepid words; aside he hissed "Bellow,
+damn you--bellow!"
+
+Nickie bellowed; he jumped with desperate energy, he clawed up the straw,
+but he remained in the shadow.
+
+"A pound!" cried the woman. "A pound jist fer goin' in with that ape?
+Done! I'm yer man."
+
+The Professor was thunderstruck, so also was Mahdi the Missing Link.
+Never since Thunder invested in his famous fake of the man-monkey had man
+or woman been found courageous enough to beard the monster in his den for
+a pound. Never had any been expected to. Professor Thunder stood
+non-plussed.
+
+Madame went to the back of the cage. "Howl!" she whispered. "Howl! Do you
+want to ruin us?"
+
+Mahdi howled, he growled ferociously, he made an attempt to savage
+Ammonia. His paroxysms were fearful to look upon, but the woman did not
+seem to mind in the least.
+
+"Open the door," she said.
+
+"Madame, are you quite resolved to take this terrible risk?" said
+Thunder, gravely, feeling keenly the approaching loss of a hard-earned
+pound.
+
+"Terrible pickles!" said the woman. "I've bin managin' men fer twenty
+years, an' I ain't goin' t be stopped be no monkey."
+
+"Very well, madam, the consequences be upon your own head." (Aside to
+Nickie) "Roar, curse you, roar!"
+
+The Missing Link crept to the back bars in an imploring attitude. "No,
+no; for the love of heaven! don't let her in!" he whispered to Madame
+Marve.
+
+Professor Thunder burst into one of his frenzied street orations to drown
+the voice of the Missing Link, and threw open the cage door. The crowd
+huddled hack, horrified. One girl screamed, but the heroine from the
+old-established lodging-house boldly entered the cage, swinging her gamp.
+
+It was expected that the strange monster from the dim, damp jungles of
+Darkest Africa would spring upon her, but he did nothing of the kind; he
+rushed to the back of his cage, and cowered down, burying his face in the
+straw.
+
+The heroine butted Mahdi the Missing Link with her gamp. He gave no sign.
+She kicked him. He bore it meekly, crouching lower. There was some
+tittering in the crowd.
+
+"Get up, you nasty brute!" said the woman, and prodded the horrid
+monster.
+
+Nickie didn't even growl. The woman kicked, she kicked with force. She
+booted the terrible brute round the cage. She seemed to glory in her
+triumph, and when Mahdi butted into a corner and refused to stir, she
+took him by one leg, and towed him twice round the cage, and the
+tittering the crowd swelled to yells of derisions and ribald laughter,
+while Professor Thunder pranced about and cursed furiously. To save his
+show from being ruined with ridicule, he rushed in, seized the woman, and
+bundled her from the cage.
+
+"I can't permit on to risk your life in this mad way," he blurted; "any
+moment he might round on you, and then they'd pinch me for manslaughter.
+Here is your pound, madam; go, and thank God you have been permitted to
+live through this fearful experience." He paid with the grand air of a
+hero of melodrama. His manner was so impressive it almost restored
+confidence, but Mahdi, the monster, remained crouched at the back of his
+cage, his face hidden in the straw, and nothing would induce him to come
+out till closing time.
+
+When the last patron was gone, and the doors were closed, Professor
+Thunder approached Nickie.
+
+"Well, my friend, you're a pretty cheap kind of baa-lamb for a Missin'
+Link, I must say," he said haughtily. "Why in the devil did you allow the
+woman to make such a holy show of you?"
+
+"What was a man to do?" answered Nickie.
+
+"A Missin' Link that knew his business would have scared her out of her
+rags. By Heavings, man, you are no artist--you will never be an artist."
+
+"You couldn't scare that woman with a den of lions and an old-time German
+dragon, Professor."
+
+"Bosh! Rot! My last Missin' Link would have had her in fits, sir."
+
+"Allow me to know, please."
+
+"What do you know about her in pertickler, fellow?"
+
+"Well, it's ten years now since I ran away from her, Professor, but I
+ought to know something about her. She's my first error of judgment.
+She's my wife!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE LINK GOES MISSING.
+
+THE Missing Link was recognised by patrons of Thunder's Museum of Marvels
+as no ordinary animal. The Professor's show being conducted in a small
+shop, and owing nothing of its popularity to expensive advertisments in
+the "Amusements" columns, received no recognition from the press,
+consequently fame on a large scale did not come to Professor Thunder.
+Nevertheless the Museum of Marvels enjoyed a reputation in humble
+circles, and here Mahdi was talked of, and accepted without a question,
+as an astonishing vindication of the Darwinian hypothesis about which the
+Professor discoursed so fluently in his three minutes' lecture before the
+cage. It had only taken Nicholas Crips two weeks to assert himself, and
+already he had introduced many novelties into the recognised "business"
+for Missing Links.
+
+Occasionally a too-inquisitive visitor with a taste for natural history
+became obtrusive and sought close investigation. It was part of Nickie's
+duty to fill such visitors with a proper respect for Missing Links, but
+ninety-nine out of every hundred accepted Mahdi in good faith. It is an
+axiom in the show business that the people who can't be deceived are so
+few that they are not worth considering.
+
+It was a hot day, life in the cage was very oppressive. Nickie the Kid
+was painfully thirsty. Probably no Missing Link since the day when man
+began to emerge from the monkey had ever been so sorely afflicted with
+the craving for alcoholic stimulants.
+
+Mahdi had a fixed allowance his beer supply was rigorously prescribed by
+Professor Thunder, and precisely measured by Madame Marve. It was this
+precision that prevented Nickie being quite content with an artistic
+career.
+
+He had had his first pint. The second pint was not due for two hours.
+Nicholas Crips was not satisfied he would survive the time. The place was
+stifling.
+
+"Yar-r, get to blazes!" snorted the Darwinian hypothesis, and hurled his
+water tin at Ammonia.
+
+Ephraim, the pig, grunted pitifully, and Matty Cann, the bone man,
+drowsed in his chair. Madame Marve was sleeping, too, and the ripple of a
+monotonous snore came from the Egyptian tent.
+
+There were no patrons, the town was still, prone under the great heat.
+Professor Thunder entered, mopping his brow, and the Missing Link pressed
+against the bars.
+
+"How is it for a drink?" he said. "You've got to be generous, Professor,
+or I resign. There you are, a drink, or my resignation--the loss of the
+most versatile Link in the profession."
+
+The Professor entered the Egyptian tent, and presently returned with a
+pint pannikin which he passed through to Mr. Crips. Nickie seized it
+greedily, raised it to his lips, and then changed his mind, and hurled it
+at Thunder with a furious imprecation.
+
+"Water!" snarled the Missing Link, "Water! You have the heart to insult a
+Christian thirst with water on a day like this, you blastiferous heathen!
+Let me out! I resign. Let me out of this monkey house."
+
+Professor Thunder laughed and returned to his post at the door, and the
+baffled Link pushed his face through the bars and poured a torrent of
+frantic objurgations in the direction of the street door.
+
+"Nickie, fer th' love iv 'Eaven let er man sleep," pleaded the Living
+Skeleton pitifully. "I was just a-dreamin' iv pickled pigs' feet an'
+fried taters--crisp, brown, fried taters. Oh, Lord!"
+
+"Be quiet!" snarled the Missing Link, "and do a perish here from thirst
+while that cow of a man swills his fill and makes a fortune out of my
+mortal agony? No, hanged if I do."
+
+The Missing Link howled again, and Madame Marve, that she might sleep
+peacefully, broke rules and regulations, and smuggled him another half
+pannikin of beer.
+
+"Lucky dog!" sighed the bone man. "If I was t' tear the place up they
+wouldn't give me half yard iv grilled steak an' er pint iv chips."
+
+After tea, Mahdi was very quiet on his straw. The Professor and Madame
+Marve were making their usual dinner of cold boiled leg of mutton, bread
+and beer, in the Egyptian tent. The other animals were sleeping.
+
+The Link was not sleeping, he was amusing him self in a quaint way at the
+back of his cage. He had a small lassoo made of cord, and was throwing it
+at an object near the wall at a distance of five feet.
+
+Every time Nickie failed he swore in a patient heart-broken way, but he
+persisted, and eventually success crowned his efforts. An exclamation of
+great joy burst from his lips.
+
+"No silly business there, Mahdi," cried Madame warningly from her tent.
+"The public will be here in half a tick."
+
+Mahdi dropped his string and curled in a knot, but presently he started
+cautiously hauling in his prize. A long hairy arm reached out and
+clutched it, and hastily hid the object in the straw. The treasure was a
+bottle three-parts full of brandy, Professor Thunder's extra special.
+
+The Missing Link's performances during the next hour were curious and
+perfunctory: the animal was not himself. If Missing Links were habitually
+intemperate one would be inclined to say this Missing Link had taken
+something too much. During a quiet quarter of an hour Mahdi got the key
+of his cage from the Professor's ordinary vest, which had been left
+hanging within his reach, opened the door, and going quietly along the
+wall behind the cages, reached the back door, opened it, and stepped into
+the night.
+
+Two minutes later a monstrous shape came out of the shadows of a
+right-of-way into the well-lighted City Street, a strange, misshapen
+animal, with a head half-human half-monkey, with a body like that of an
+ourang-outang and long, flapping feet. The brute was covered with short,
+tufted, reddish hair, and in its hand it carried a brandy bottle
+containing about half-a-cup of spirit.
+
+The first to confront Nicholas Crips, the Missing Link, was a woman. She
+did not attempt to escape, but stood right in his way, staring at him
+with eye frantic with terror. Fear had struck her motionless but not
+dumb; she shrieked in Mahdi's face again and again. Her screams echoed
+along the street.
+
+"Thash all ri', missus," said the Missing Link affably, "I don' know you,
+an' excuse me; I don' wanter hear you sing." He brushed her aside, and
+rolled drunkenly into a wine shop.
+
+In the wine shop a large mirror served as a door screen. Nickie saw his
+grizzly shape reflected in this, and after surveying it in stupid
+surprise for a few moments, smashed the glass with his bottle, and rolled
+out again.
+
+Amazed men assembled at the door, fell back in awe before the Missing
+Link, and Mahdi crossed the road, carrying the neck of the broken bottle,
+his quaint feet, like huge hands, flopping in the dust. Mahdi's make-up
+did Professor Thunder great credit--it was grotesquely inhuman. The shape
+of the costume demanded a stooping attitude and shambling gait. Only in a
+good light and at close quarters could the deception be seen.
+
+People came running from all directions. A cab horse backed in terror
+before the monster, reared, plunged furiously and bolted into a peanut
+stall.
+
+Nickie waddled on, blissfully unconscious of the sensation he was
+creating. He invaded a secondhand clothes shop.
+
+"Shemima, mother of der brophet!" gasped Moses Aaronstein, throwing out
+his palms in a gesture terror, and Moses bolted through a side door.
+
+The Missing Link appropriated a spangled skirt and trailed it after him
+down the street. The shouting crowd followed at a respectful distance. In
+a small eating-house the Link encountered two men eating fried steak and
+onions. They beheld him with indescribable emotion, glared for a moment
+and fled. A girl coming in with a tureen of stew dropped the lot on the
+floor, threw her apron over her head, and fainted amongst the broken
+crockery and scattered viands.
+
+For a moment the strange inebriate stood swaying over the prostrate girl,
+making a grave, drunken effort to grasp the situation, then the Italian
+proprietress came into the room humming a cheerful strain, and carrying a
+burden of fried sausages. She beheld the horror, uttered a piercing
+scream, and dashed up the narrow stairs. Nickie went up the stairs after
+her, anxious to explain. The horrified people pressing at the front door
+and the windows saw him pass out of sight. There was now a large, excited
+crowd in the street. All sorts of rumours were afloat. Already it was
+stated that the mighty gorilla had killed three men and eaten half a
+horse. Two policemen were busy beating back the crowd, and collecting
+evidence from excited onlookers who had seen nothing.
+
+At this stage, Professor Thunder dashed through the assemblage. The
+Professor was in an agitated frame of mind.
+
+"What is it?" he cried. "Has anyone seen a Missin' Link--a dark brown
+Missin' Link?"
+
+Ten persons explained at once.
+
+"He's in there now," cried a bewildered cabman, pointing to the
+eating-house. "He's ate er girl, an' he's out after the missus with a
+club."
+
+"'T went up them stairs," cried a trembling woman.
+
+Yells from the crowd in the road brought the people surging into the
+middle of the street. Mahdi had opened a front window, and stepped out on
+to the roof of the verandah. He was dancing clumsily on the corrugated
+iron, and gesticulating, with his long, shaggy hands. Nickie was
+declaring with the warmth of absolute conviction that he was a king, but
+the yelling of the crowd rendered his speech inaudible.
+
+"I'm a king!" cried the Missing Link. "Behold in me your rightful
+sovereign. Bow down t' ye ri'ful sovereign, ye base born!" He threw five
+fried sausages into the crowd.
+
+The crowd continued yelling, and Nickie broke into a vain-glorious song,
+and capered like an idiot brandishing a Vienna loaf.
+
+Professor Thunder beat on his forehead like the baffled villain in the
+play. "Ten thousand furies!" he howled, and dashed for the stairs.
+
+While the Missing Link was still capering, Professor Thunder appeared at
+the window. He climbed through. The crowd loudly applauded his courage.
+He descended upon Mahdi, he seized him. The crowd cheered vociferously.
+Professor Thunder kicked the Missing Link. He dragged him back to the
+window, and kicked him through. The crowd nearly went frantic in its
+appreciation of such heroism.
+
+Presently the Professor appeared on the stairs, dragging the hairy
+monster after him. He dragged it by the leg. It bumped cruelly on the
+steps. The Professor pulled the Missing Link to his feet, took him by his
+rudimentary tail and the scuff of his neck, and ran him out of the shop.
+He ran the grizzly monster up the street as a publican ejects the
+unwelcome drunk. The crowd followed, cheering still.
+
+It was an inspiriting sight. The Missing Link running on tip-toes, his
+eyes projecting, seemingly in imminent danger of falling on his nose, the
+Professor furious, two wild policemen with drawn clubs following after,
+ready to do or die should the terrible brute break loose again.
+
+The Professor ran Mahdi into the show, kicking him through the door. He
+kicked him into his cage, and ten seconds later was vociferating on his
+kerosene box again, strenuously inviting the crowd to roll up, roll up,
+roll up, and see the wonderful Missing Link, the only genuine man-monkey
+in captivity.
+
+The rush that followed was unprecedented in the history of Professor
+Thunder's Museum of Marvels. The people flocked in. Prices were put up to
+a shilling all round, but still the people flocked, and Letitia took
+nearly a bucketful of silver before public interest was exhausted.
+
+Meanwhile, Madame Marve stirred up Nickie in his cage, and made him grin
+and howl and caper for the edification of the crowd, whose souls his
+street escapades had filled with awe.
+
+Next day the papers contained an account of the excitement occasioned in
+the city by the escape of a huge monkey from Thunder's Museum of Marvels,
+and the Missing Link demanded an increase of salary and a double
+allowance of beer, and got both, in view of his increased importance as
+the greatest draw the show had ever known.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE MISSING LINK PERFORMS IN THE PROVINCES.
+
+AFTER taking to the show business, Nicholas Crips often complained of the
+vicissitudes of an artistic career and threatened on many occasions to
+resign his arduous role as the Missing Link, but despite his occasional
+eccentric departures from the manners and customs of Missing Links,
+Nickie had so far proved to be the most successful and profitable
+man-monkey ever associated with the Professor's show, and Thunder was
+determined not to lose him.
+
+A bottle of beer, a good meal, and a season of repose, usually overcame
+Nickie's reluctance to continue his splendid impersonation. Besides, the
+easy Bohemian life was taking hold of him, and the actor's morbid love of
+applause had already planted itself in his breast.
+
+Matty Cann, the bone man, was the most respectable and melancholy freak
+in the museum, but his melancholy was not native to him, it sprang from
+the cravings of appetite doomed to dissatisfaction--he had his brighter
+moments.
+
+"I ken put up with always bein' like er specimei iv er Indian famine," he
+said, confiding in Mahdi the Missing Link, through the bars of the latter
+cage, "knowing the missus and the kids has plenty. You noticed 'ow fat
+Jane was when she brought the fam'ly t' see the show the other day? Well,
+I give you my word, the wife was thin enough t' take on this billet
+'erself when the Perfesser engaged me."
+
+Nickie's sentimental side was quite stirred by the affection existing
+between Bonypart and his small family, and the anguish of Jane and the
+kiddies at parting with Matty when the show was on the eve of starting on
+a provincial tour so wrought upon him that he shed two large tears down
+his Simian cheeks, and handed a shilling to Mat, the fat baby.
+
+The show opened at Bunkers, a small Gippsland town. The Museum of Marvels
+was conveyed in a two-horse caravan, and was displayed in a small circus
+tent, Mahdi's cage, as usual, being thrown into shadow by an ingenious
+device of the Professor's.
+
+Professor Thunder was more at his ease in the bush towns. There patrons
+are neither so inquisitive nor so exacting as in the metropolis. The
+Museum of Marvels was opened to the public of Bunkers in the afternoon,
+admission sixpence, children half-price, special concessions to schools
+and other educational institutions.
+
+Nickie found his sphere of usefulness enlarged in the country, since he
+expected to assist in pitching the tent and striking it again, and had to
+do his share of the camp work, cooking, &c. The quick changes prevented
+outsiders from noticing that the absence of Nicholas Crips was always
+coincident--with the appearance of Mahdi, the Missing Link; but, still,
+nice judgment and caution had to be observed in effecting the
+transformation.
+
+Business at Bunkers was only moderate--for the first afternoon and
+evening, but Professor Thunder had so worked his "splendid living
+realisation of the Darwinian theory, the descent of man," as to induce
+the proprietress of a local young ladies' school to bring her pupils on
+the second afternoon.
+
+There were twenty-five young ladies in all, daughters of the superior
+families of Bunkers and the surrounding district. Miss Arnott, their
+teacher, was a tall, bony spinster, with austere glasses and sharp elbows
+that looked like weapons of defence.
+
+The Professor had several manners adapted for various audiences, and
+possessed costumes to Suit. He met Miss Arnott and her pupils in his
+splendid impersonation of the studious naturalist and reverent authority
+on the wonders of creation. A long black coat, a somewhat dingy
+belltopper, and a pair of smoked spectacles went with the part. So
+equipped, the boss conducted the seminary through his Museum of Marvels,
+educating and edifying the pupils, first with the astonishing
+mathematical calculations of Ephraim, the educated pig, then with Madame
+Marve's amazing acts of mysticism and legerdemain.
+
+The Living Skeleton was described as a unique freak of nature--"Teaching
+us all how wise and wonderlul are the workings of Providence," said the
+Professor, piously. "He is thin, ladies, but very--happy," he added.
+
+This was Bonypart's cue to work off a long, wan smile, and he smiled
+accordingly. The effort so worked on the feelings of one of the younger
+pupils that she burst into tears, and offered the bone man her piece of
+cake.
+
+Matty Cann looked eager, but the Professor smartly intervened.
+
+"Excuse me, young lady," he said suavely, "but visitors are requested not
+to feed the Living Skeleton. Living Skeletons are very delicately
+organised, madame," he continued, addressing the teacher. "A dry biscuit
+has been known to throw them into violent dyspepsia and they have died of
+a rump steak."
+
+Bonypart groaned audibly and recovering himself, made another effort to
+smile, but failed, and sighed hungrily, whereat the younger pupil broke
+into a dismal wail, and had to be taken out and soothed with lemonade.
+
+The fine collection of natural curiosities, illustrating the descent of
+man, was reserved for the last, and Professor Thunder proudly arrayed his
+company before the cages containing the tiny apes, the middling-sized
+gibbons, the baboon, Ammonia, the gorilla, and Mahdi, the man-monkey, or
+Missing Link.
+
+The young ladies were quite enthusiastic in their admiration. They fed
+the Missing Link with spongecake and nuts, which he took from their hands
+and ate with a certain genteel decorum. His manner of cracking the nuts
+was much appreciated. Nickie was a specialist at nut-cracking, having
+made a special study of the subject at the Zoo.
+
+Some of the girls said he was a "regular dear," and threw him flowers,
+and frosty Miss Arnott relaxed her elbows a trifle, and admitted that
+this quaint creature was indeed entertaining and instructive--most
+instructive. She had never met a more instructive creature. And meanwhile
+Ammonia the gorilla shook the dividing bars, and reached fierce claws
+towards Mahdi, convulsed with jealousy, and inspired with a primitive
+yearning for nuts.
+
+Professor Thunder spread himself in the delivery of his learned oration
+on the origin of the human race, beginning with Spider, and ranging up to
+the wondrous Missing Link. "Captured by my own hand in the jungles of
+Central Africa, ladies," said he, with fine dramatic elocution and the
+attitudes of a leading man.
+
+"You will observe that the creature is kept in semi-darkness, that is
+because he is accustomed to the thick shades of his native forests. He is
+very docile, excepting when attacked or irritated"--(descriptive growls
+from the Missing Link)--"when he displays extraordinary activity in
+pursuit of his foes"--(display of extraordinary activity by Madhi,
+swinging on the bar, racing round the cage, roaring, &c.). "He is very
+human in his appearance, as you will observe, and is much more upright in
+his carriage than the gorilla, while his mild and benevolent expression
+in repose"--(mild and benevolent expression artfully simulated by the
+Missing Link)--"gives his countenance a certain manly beauty and dignity.
+Looking at him thus, ladies, no one will deny that he stands for the
+missing link in the chain leading from the small ape up through the
+gorilla to the noblest work of God." The Professor finished chin up,
+heels together, eyes lifted, and the left hand thrust in the vest, a la
+Napoleon--to signify the highest effort of a benign Providence.
+
+Here Ammonia created a diversion by squealing angrily, spitting at the
+Missing Link, and clawing for him in a paroxysm of professional envy.
+
+"I think, ladies," continued Professor Thunder in his best manner, "that
+even those who discard the Darwinian hypothesis because of their
+objection to acknowledging relationship with the monkeys should have no
+reluctance to admit some distant connection with this noble and
+intelligent being, so like man in bearing and intellect, and yet so
+closely allied to the gorilla that we cannot deny--Blazes and fury!"
+
+The Professor's indecorous ejaculation was in spired by the mean,
+vicious, and unsportsmanlike conduct of Ammonia the gorilla, who had
+succeeded in gripping Mahdi by one leg, and was hanging on, squealing
+frightfully.
+
+"Pull him off! Pull him off!" yelled the Missing Link, forgetting
+everything in the moment of pain and, peril.
+
+Instantly the whole show was thrown into commotion. Miss Arnott screamed,
+her pupils screamed, the monkeys all rattled at their cages and jabbered
+excitedly; the Professor, the Living Skeleton, and Madame Marve added to
+the uproar.
+
+Ammonia, having his hated rival in his power at last, was determined to
+glut his hate. He secured a grip with the other iron talon, dragged
+Nickie down, and pulling him close to the bars, and pushing his short
+nose between the rods, bit at him with gleaming teeth, and all the time
+he clawed furiously, his nails tearing through the hide of the Missing
+Link, and lacerating the man beneath pitilessly.
+
+Nickie fought and yelled and swore, in good strong Australian. Miss
+Arnott's pupils, huddled together, staring with round, horrified eyes,
+and as they stared a truly horrible thing happened. The skin was torn
+clean from the upper part of the Missing Link, and the bare,
+blood-stained head and shoulders of a man emerged.
+
+That was too much for a well-conducted ladies seminary. With a final
+ear-piercing scream in chorus the school turned and fled; it broke
+pell-mell from the tent, headed by Miss Arnott, who executed a remarkable
+sprint, taking her age, her dignity and her lack of training into
+consideration.
+
+It was Madame Marve who rescued Nickie from the clutches of the gorilla,
+having subdued the brute with a discharge from a squirt charged with
+ammonia; but Professor Thunder was not thankful, he hadn't time, his
+magnificent mind was already busy on ways and means of repairing the
+mischief done to his Missing Link and to his reputation as an honourable
+showman.
+
+Of course, the revelation resulting from Ammonia's misconduct would go
+round the place like wildfire. There might be a raid of indignant
+residents, a prosecution for fraud, and there wasn't time to run.
+
+The raid came in due time. Ten heads of families accompanied by Quinn,
+the local constable, bore down upon the Museum of Marvels within an hour.
+Professor Thunder met them at the entrance, with his studious manner and
+his solemn black hat. The raid was going to express itself forcibly; it
+did refer to "iniquitous frauds," "shameful imposition," "scoundrels,"
+&c., but the Professor's big, penetrating voice, his heavy-as-lead
+manner, triumphed.
+
+"Most unfortunate, gentlemen, a most lamentable disaster," he said. "My
+valuable Missing Link is more seriously injured than I imagined, and I
+may lose him, which would be a heavy blow, indeed, as the College of
+Naturalists of London, values the beast at four thousand and seventy
+pounds."
+
+"It's a fraud--a blanky imposition!" cried a fierce little man.
+
+"Gentlemen will you favour me by stepping into the museum, and judging
+for yourself," said Thunder gravely. "You will find the Missing Link in a
+low state, but Madame Marve has done all that surgical skill could do.
+The murderous attacks of the gorilla scalped the poor creature, and tore
+the skin from his body, but the wounds have been stitched up--there is
+still hope. This way, gentle men, and quietly, if you please."
+
+The surprised and subdued deputation found Mahdi, the Missing Link, lying
+moaning on his straw, his wounds--artfully bloodstained--all stitched up.
+There were white bandages about his head and his injured arms.
+
+"But the girls say it was a man gasped the fierce deputationist.
+
+"A not unnatural mistake, my dear sir," said the Professor, "Strip the
+poor creature of its hairy hide and its resemblance to a human creature
+would deceive the most expert naturalist."
+
+"Wonderful!" said the local publican.
+
+"But all the same, me mahn," said Quinn, regretfully, "I have half a
+moind t' prosecute yeh fer croolty t' animals."
+
+The trick worked, however, the situation was saved, and that night all
+Bunkers flocked to see the Missing Link that had been flayed in its
+life-and-death struggle with an infuriated gorilla.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE STOLEN BABE.
+
+IN the larger townships and the small towns visit by the museum of
+Marvels on its provincial tour, Professor Thunder, gifted manager of this
+"colossal amusement enterprise," as the streamers eloquently phrased it,
+preferred to secure a shop in the main street to pitching his tent in
+some out-of-the-way place, where his persuasive powers might be wasted on
+the desert air.
+
+The Professor flattered himself there was not a more seductive
+"spruicher" in the business, and, mounted on a gin case at a shop front
+plentifully papered with screaming posters depicting the more popular
+attractions, he reckoned that he could always lure a given number of
+people into the show by the sheer force of his eloquence, and so make up
+the rent, provided there were men and women in the street willing to
+listen.
+
+Professor Thunder had found a vacant shop to suit him near the end of
+Main-street, Wangaroo. He would have preferred a central site at the same
+price, or even less, but none was available. However, business was so
+good on the first afternoon and evening that he resolved to extend his
+Wangaroo season into the following week. This involved a day of idleness,
+an unemployed Sunday, a boon that rarely came to the partakers in
+Professor Thunder's godless enterprises, the day of rest usually being
+given over to travel and arduous preparations for a Monday matinee.
+
+Nicholas Crips was well content with the change of dates. He certainly
+took a good deal of natural pride in his marked success as the most
+artistic and realistic representative of the missing link, and toyed in
+the reputation he was rapidly making for himself in the show business;
+but for all that, it was a great relief to throw off the hide of the
+celebrated man-monkey, drop the exactions of art, and be himself for a
+whole day.
+
+Nickie did not find, as many celebrated actors have done, that the work
+of sustaining a grand role day after day, night after night, week after
+week, and month after month, was too exacting; he bore the strain with
+consummate ease; moreover, the most conscientious artist wishes to be
+himself once now and again, if merely for a change.
+
+The shop in Wangaroo occupied by the Museum of Marvels was rented from a
+Chinese greengrocer, who carried on a business next door. The place had
+originally been one shop, but Kit See, with the frugality of his race,
+had partitioned it roughly, and with Oriental astuteness let the half for
+nearly as much as he paid for the whole.
+
+Kit See was a stout, cream Confucian with an oleaginous smile, and the
+gentle, propitiatory man of an inferior people, cunning enough to realise
+that if you cannot dominate it is wisest to be docile. He had a good
+stock, a good business, a half-caste wife, and a noiseless, placid,
+slit-eyed baby about the size of a Bologna sausage.
+
+The Missing Link discovered this much through a crack in the partition,
+and amused himself with his eyes glued to the slit when there were no
+professional demands on his time and talents.
+
+Most things that Mahdi did irritated Ammonia, whose jealousy and hatred
+were intensified by Nickie's habit, when in a playful humour, of teasing
+the gorilla by ostentatiously devouring delicacies Ammonia particularly
+affected in Ammonia's sight, almost within his reach.
+
+Nickie's interest in that hole in the wall was a course of consuming
+anxiety to Ammonia. While Mahdi had his eye to the wall, the gorilla
+would cling to the bars of his cage, pushing his blunt nose through, and
+gibber and spit and protest in a high-pitched, querulous growl.
+
+"Blime, yiv got the noble Ammonia goin' this trip, Nickie," said the
+Living Skeleton.
+
+"Yes," replied Nickie, still with his eye to the crack, "that beast will
+have to learn decency and good conduct, Matty, my man. I aspire to teach
+him moral restraint."
+
+"He'll do you a bad turn one o' them days, mark me."
+
+"I believe not," said the Missing Link. "I've got something here that
+will always reduce him to reason." Nickie touched his breast. "I say,
+Matthew, this Chow next door is a luxurious heathen. He's got all sorts
+of lovely preserved fruits in beautiful juices, and cakes, and ginger
+floating in its own gravy, and there is a bottle of Chinese brand under
+the counter. Now, Matthew, I think it is a sin to encourage the inferior
+races to indulge in intoxicants."
+
+"Don't," cried the Living Skeleton, a ring of anguish in his tones. "Yeh
+know, it's agin the rules t' talk t' me of things t' eat. It makes me
+fat." Poor Matty Cann groaned aloud. "Is there anythin' substantial?" he
+asked pitifully.
+
+"Not just now," said Nickie, "but last night I watched the Chow and his
+missus dining on roast duck. You notice there's a door in this partition
+just at the back of my cage. Curious, is it not? Well, I found an old
+rusty key in the crack under the wall, and it fits the lock of that door.
+Remarkable that, don't you think? Now, I shan't be surprised if some of
+those Chow delicacies find their way in here most unaccountably."
+
+"What's it t' me if they do?" sighed Matty. "I wouldn't dare t' eat 'em.
+If I did the boss would find I was puttin' on flesh, an' I'd be doin' a
+bunk."
+
+"But I suppose a drop of Chinese brandy wouldn't entirely spoil your
+figure, my boy."
+
+The Chinese delicacies did find their way into the cage of the Missing
+Link, quite a fine assortment of them, also the bottle of Celestial
+spirits. Ammonia witnessed the process of transference that night, and
+nearly went mad in his cage, springing about wildly, clinging to the
+bars, squealing and certainly blaspheming in his peculiar monkey
+gibberish, and Nicholas Crips sat in his cage, impishly eager to goad his
+enemy to fury, and ate luscious figs and fine preserves, while the
+gorilla strained at the intervening bars and shrilled his anguish.
+
+After this there were other casual visits to the shop of Kit See, and
+Ammonia's curiosity concerning the mysterious place from which the
+Missing Link drew such delectable supplies kept him at the back of his
+cage for hours together, peering at the wall, scratching it, and whining
+impotently.
+
+Evidently Kit See was troubled in his mind, too, for he came into the
+show to examine the door in the wall, and finding the cage of the Missing
+Link right up against it, and the formidable monster sleeping in the
+straw, was satisfied that the petty larcenist found access to his goods
+in some other way.
+
+On the Sunday, Nickie and the Living Skeleton walked abroad, seeing the
+sights of Wangaroo, including a waterfall; a hanging rock, and a
+cemetery, the latter the favourite resort of the elite and fashion of
+Wangaroo on Sundays. Mat's skeleton proportions were disguised in a long
+overcoat, and Nickie wore a loud theatrical suit, and a conspicuous
+clean-shave. He thought he looked like Henry Irving. He didn't see why he
+shouldn't.
+
+The company ate a late dinner in a room behind the show that evening.
+Amiable Madame Marve had prepared an excellent meal, in which the
+regulation beer and boiled leg of mutton course was relieved of monotony
+with vegetables and dumplings. There was soup before and pudding after,
+and in a burst of gratitude the Missing Link proposed the health of the
+Egyptian Mystic which was being drunk with enthusiasm in Chinese brandy,
+when suddenly a great racket arose in the yard, shouts and screams were
+heard from the street, and Kit See burst in upon the dinner party, his
+Celestial fade pale with terror, his usually benignant eyes round with
+apprehension.
+
+"What' for? Wha' far?" screamed the Chinaman at Professor Thunder. "Come!
+Come! You come dam quick! Monkey he stealem my baby."
+
+"Wha--at?" yelled the Professor.
+
+"The monkey cally baby away alonga house-top si'." Kit pointed to the
+ceiling. He was dancing with anguish.
+
+The Professor dashed for the caravan cage, and was back in a minute.
+"It's Ammonia," he cried, wild with excitement. "He's broke loose. He's
+got the Chinaman's baby on the roof."
+
+Kit See ran into the street, the Professor turned to follow, but Nickie
+seized him.
+
+"Hold hard," he said, "there's no hurry, no hurry in the world. Let us
+think this thing out."
+
+"No hurry!" snorted the Professor, "and that infernal gorilla waltzing
+round up there with a live baby?" The Professor's tragic manner would
+have been the making of a cheap melodrama.
+
+"Did you ever know Ammonia drop anything he'd once taken a good grip of?
+The youngster's safe for a while. It strike me we can make a hit out of
+this. How will it read in the Wangaroo 'Guardian': 'Child stolen by a
+gorilla. Rescue by Professor Thunder's famous Missing Link'?"
+
+Professor Thunder stopped with a gasp. "Holy Joseph!" he said, "that's a
+noble thought, my boy. Can it be done?"
+
+"You get out there and keep the crowd from overexerting itself. Leave the
+rest to me."
+
+Professor Thunder dashed out by the front door. There was already a large
+and vociferous crowd in the road, staring up at the gorilla,
+gesticulating and yelling, and people were coming running from all
+directions. On the side of the road stood Kit See, weeping, and
+brandishing his arms helplessly in the face of this grand calamity.
+Aloft, on the top of one of the chimneys, about three feet above the
+roof, sat the gorilla. In one of his hind claws he held the baby's
+clothing, and the youngster dangled, apparently disregarded by Ammonia,
+who, despite the terrors of the situation, cut a most ridiculous figure,
+for he was composedly sucking the milk from the baby's bottle, keeping
+his vindictive eyes on the crowd the while.
+
+"For God's sake keep quiet," thundered the Professor to the excited
+crowd. "Do not irritate him, and all will be well." He dragged to the
+ground a heroic Cousin Jack miner who was climbing the verandah post.
+"Back, man, back," he cried, "or all is lost."
+
+The Professor strode up and down with all a heavy villain's
+impressiveness and orated. His eloquence was drowned by a great
+hullabaloo at the next corner, and with a rattle and a yell four firemen
+came tearing down the road with a hose-reel. Some excited individual had,
+rung the fire-bell. The firemen attached the hose to a plug, and came on,
+hydrant in hand. It required all the Professor's energies, supplemented
+by the frenzied protestations of Kit See, to prevent them turning a full
+stream of water on the gorilla.
+
+The crowd was now a large one, gathered far out on the road, where a good
+view of the roof was obtainable, and when the excitement occasioned by
+the fire men had subsided, a fresh outburst was provoked by the
+appearance of another huge monkey, the great bulk of which came up slowly
+over the left ridge. The second monkey, which was much larger than the
+gorilla, sat upon the apex of the roof, jabbered at Ammonia, and the
+gorilla turned towards him, baring his teeth in a hideous grin of malice.
+
+"Keep still!" yelled Professor Thunder. "Keep quiet, for the love of
+heaven! Mahdi, the Missing Link, will save the che--e--ild! Mahdi, the
+animal that approaches nearest to man, captured by me in the dark jungles
+of Darkest Africa. Observe."
+
+The gorilla seemed animated with an implacable hatred for the larger
+monkey. The shades of night were falling, but the people in the street
+could divine this enmity from Ammonia's attitude and his gestures. His
+flat, ugly face was thrust towards the Missing Link. He grimaced
+horribly. With his eyes always on Mahdi, the gorilla slowly lowered the
+baby to the roof and let it go. The roof was shaped like an M, and the
+child rolled harmlessly into the gutter between the ridges. For a moment
+Ammonia faced the Missing Link, his venomous little eyes luminous as
+those of a cat, and then he ran along the ridge.
+
+A cry broke from the crowd, but when Ammonia was within couple of feet of
+the Missing Link he stopped as if shot, let go his hold, and rolled down
+the roof, and lay in the gutter beside the child, limp and inanimate.
+
+Mahdi clambered down the ridge, took up the baby, and, nursing it gently
+on one arm, came along the roof and down the sloping verandah, and
+lowered the son and heir of Kit See into Professor Thunder's arms amidst
+a storm of cheering such as had never been heard at Wangaroo.
+
+Nickie had predicted rightly. The Wangaroo "Guardian" next morning
+contained a thrilling account of the rescue, and in a leading article the
+editor pointed out that the humanitarian action of the Missing Link was
+proof that it approached nearer to the standard of man than any other
+known animal.
+
+The enthusiasm provoked by Mahdi's action brought a tremendous rush of
+business. In fact, the attention excited threatened to lead to an
+exposure of Professor Thunder's daring imposition. Leading men wanted to
+interview Mahdi; a section of the people of Wangaroo were even talking of
+having the Missing Link adorned with the Humane Society's medal, and
+another section prepared an illuminated address. Eventually the great
+showman left the town in something of a hurry to escape notoriety that
+promised to be dangerous, but he had done a record six-days' business,
+and was content.
+
+"But how'd yeh beat the blanky gorilla?" asked the Living Skeleton on the
+morning after the rescue, as the Missing Link sat in his cage munching
+preserved fruits presented to him in abundance by the grateful Kit See.
+
+"How do you think?" replied the intelligent animal. "With an ammonia
+squirt, of course. When he came at me I squirted a dose into him that
+nearly killed him. I'm never without that little weapon, and I think,
+Matthew really think that we shall teach the gorilla proper respect for
+the superior animals before we have done with him. His desire to supplant
+me in the scheme of evolution is contrary to science, my boy, and a
+defiance of natural law, and must not be countenanced for a moment."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE DEFEAT OF DAN HEELEY.
+
+AT Big Timber Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels had run for several
+consecutive hours to satisfactory business, and was now well on its way
+to The Mills, where a great day was expected in view of some local
+festivity that meant a general holiday for the mill hands, and a bush
+carousal.
+
+The caravan was drawn up for tea in the moonlit bush by Howlet's jinker
+track. A camp-fire blazed in the end of a butt under a wide-branching
+gum. The Professor lay at a distance--for the night was warm--smoking on
+the crisp grass. The Living Skeleton crouched near, embracing his lean
+knees, staring into the fire, thinking fondly of his absent wife and
+family, a furtive tear lurking in the hollow of his cheek, for Matty
+Cann's absurd sentimentality made him a failure as a vagabond. Nickie
+fussed about gallantly, assisting Madame Marve and little Miss Thunder,
+who were busy spreading papers for the evening meal.
+
+Professor Thunder had in Madame Marve a perfect wife for a showman. In
+addition to her value as the Egyptian Mystic, a wonder-worker, and teller
+of for tunes, she was chief cook and housekeeper for the whole caravan,
+but she had a flirtatious disposition, and the attentions Nicholas Crips
+offered in his unprofessional moments were received in a spirit of
+frivolous appreciation that disturbed the boss showman's complacency at
+times.
+
+"Less of it. Less of it, my boy!" was his deep throated exhortation on
+such occasions.
+
+All the members of the company had to take a hand in the hard graft and
+menial tasks incidental to the upkeep, management and movement of the
+show, and neither professional etiquette nor artistic pride could rescue
+Nicholas Crips from the vulgar task of preparing comestibles for the
+monkeys. But Madame was certainly the most useful artist on Professor
+Thunder's salary list, a document preserved with much pride, to be
+exhibited in bars and such public places for purposes of advertisement,
+and which represented the Egyptian Mystic as receiving £30 per week. On
+the salary list Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, was rated at £15 per week.
+He actually received twenty-shillings and his keep.
+
+"Professional usage, my boy--professional usage!" explained the
+celebrated entrepreneur when Matty Cann drew attention to the
+discrepancy. "It's always done in the theatrical business. Bless you, you
+don't think we pay our Sarah Bernhardts, and our Cinquevallis, and our
+Paderewskis and our Peggy Prydes those enormous salaries that get into
+the papers. No; no, we couldn't do it, but we are content to let it be
+thought we do. It impresses our public, Bonypart--it impresses our
+public, my boy."
+
+Madame Marve produced bread, butter, pannikins, and the familiar
+necessities, brought forward the usual boiled leg of mutton on a lordly
+dish, large, fat and steaming like a laundry.
+
+"Encore, encore!" cried the Professor.
+
+"Hear, hear!" applauded Nickie, clapping vigorously. Matty Cann even
+ventured an expression of appreciation.
+
+Madame Marve placed the mutton for the carver, and bowed low to the right
+and left, picked up an imaginary bouquet, and threw three kisses to
+hypothetical "gods."
+
+"Come, come, Bony," she said, patting the Living Skeleton on the back,
+"buck up, man. If my old man couldn't think of me for ten minutes without
+snivelling, I'd have a divorce."
+
+Matty Cann smiled wanly. He had no great cause to "buck up," his share of
+the boiled leg would be very small indeed and entirely knuckle, the
+Professor holding that the knuckle end was not fat-producing.
+
+"It's Jane's birthday this day week, an' little Mat'll be two year old
+the day after. I was wonderin' if I could get a day off t' visit me
+fam'ly?" said Matty.
+
+"And fat up over-eating yourself," said Thunder. "Not much, my boy!"
+
+Matty groaned. "I give you me word I'd eat nothin' but ship's biscuit,"
+he pleaded.
+
+"Poor old Bony," said the Egyptian Mystic. "It's a pity your missus ain't
+a bit of a freak, so as we could have her along. Now, if she could eat
+fire we might find a place for her. Fire-eaters are very popular. I
+suppose she couldn't learn to eat fire, Bony?"
+
+The Living Skeleton shook his head gloomily over his poor meal. "I'm
+afraid she couldn't," he said. "Jane ain't got any gifts."
+
+The meal was finished, and the utensils were washed and restored to the
+caravan cupboard, a zinc-lined packing case. Professor Thunder was down
+on his back on the crisp grass again, smoking. He was feeling good, and
+opened his heart.
+
+"We'll top off with a touch of old Jamaica, Nickie, my boy," he said.
+"There's a bottle in the box-seat. You might lead her out."
+
+Nickie needed no second invitation. He sprang up with unaccustomed
+alacrity, and passed out of the circle of light into the bush darkness.
+He found the bottle in the locker under the driving seat, and stepping
+down from the vehicle turned again towards the fire. The extraordinary
+change in the peaceful scene he had just left flashed upon him with the
+vividness of a tableau in melodrama The gifted members of Professor
+Thunder's world company were no longer lounging carelessly on the grass,
+they stood erect, grouped together, their faces, tense with fear and
+amazement, showing whitey-yellow in the firelight, their hands thrown
+above their heads. Facing them on the other side of the fire, with his
+profile to Nicholas Crips, was a short, stoutly-built man, in a coarse
+blue shirt and corduroy riding pants, with a white handkerchief tied
+loosely about his neck. A fine chestnut horse stood behind him. The rein
+was looped over his arm. In his right hand this man held a long,
+business-like Colt's revolver pointed at the group before him.
+
+It was a fine picture, intensely dramatic, it amazed Nickie, and brought
+him up short with a gasp, but it did not appeal to him as an artist
+particularly. He stepped sharply into cover of a gum butt. His hand went
+instinctively to his breast where, in a small chamois bag next his skin,
+he carried a certain treasure the care of which was the one real concern
+of his present life.
+
+"See here," said the gentleman with the long revolver, "the first of you,
+man, woman or child, that stirs a finger or utters a yelp gets lead
+poisonin'. Understand?" He looked round. "This is the whole band?" he
+said.
+
+Professor Thunder nodded his head.
+
+"Yes," said the intruder, "I was at your show at Big Timber, Professor,
+an' I took trouble t' size up the strength of the crowd. I guessed it
+would be an easy thing, and it is."
+
+"Who are you?" asked the celebrated entrepreneur, much distressed to find
+himself in a theatrical situation that was painfully real.
+
+"Don't ask questions of yer betters, Professor, an' you won't get hurt.
+Howsomever, yer bound t' hear at The Mills all about Dan Heeley, so I
+don't mind admittin' I'm little Danny."
+
+"Heeley!" gasped Madame Marve, "the man that shot Hollander, the man
+that's been sticking up the banks?"
+
+Heeley's brow darkened.
+
+"Precisely, missus," he said; "the man the Gov' mint offers £250 quid
+for, cash on delivery." He turned again to Professor Thunder. "I noticed
+you was doin' pretty good at Big Timber, mate," he said, "and I thought
+I'd follow on and pick up a little loose change. Fact is, I want your
+cash box, Perfessor, and any little articles of value you don't happen to
+be needin' for the moment."
+
+"I--I've got next to nothing," faltered Thunder. "Most of my takings went
+in expenses."
+
+Mat Heeley's revolver hand became rigid, his grim mouth, tightened, his
+chin set itself in prognathous ugliness.
+
+"You'll send your little girl for that cash box, Professor," he said
+coldly, "and you'll tell her to gather up any bits and pieces of
+jewellery and such like as would please me, and if the collection isn't a
+good one I'll maybe blow an arm off you, jist as a mark of my
+displeasure. As for the rest, if you ain't good I'll riddle the brain-pan
+of one of yeh jist to convince the others that I mean business."
+
+Professor Thunder was quite convinced; he had not the slightest doubt but
+that Daniel meant business. He gave Letitia his keys, and a few words of
+instruction, and the girl went to the caravan, and presently returned
+with the Professor's zinc cash box and a chamois-leather bag containing a
+few rings and chains belonging to himself and Madame.
+
+Dan Heeley placed his revolver to his hand on the stump by his side, and
+took up the cash box, but the next instant he snatched at his revolver
+again, and turned it upon a large, ungainly figure, that loped out of the
+bush, and stood grinning and chattering where the firelight faded into
+gloom. It was Mahdi the Missing Link, in full dress.
+
+"What's that?" demanded Heeley, fiercely.
+
+The figure leaped about in a foolish way, and rolled on the grass in
+unwield play. Heeley burst into laughter. "It's that blanky monkey," he
+said. "D'yeh mean t' say you leave four thousan' quids' worth o' monkey
+run round loose in the bush like this?"
+
+Mr. Heeley grinned amiably, replaced the revolver on the stump, and
+turned his attention to the cash box once more. That cash box was
+decidedly heavy, but the Professor, whose heart had been in his boots at
+the prospect of a big loss, was now tremulous with hope, and watched the
+Missing Link anxiously. Mahdi scraped and picked at the grass with a
+diverting show of monkey antics, sniffed at the boiler in which the leg
+of mutton had been cooked, and backed away nearer Heeley, with a yowl of
+consternation as his nose encountered the scalding water. Dan Heeley was
+diverted, he laughed aloud, but he had a cautious eye on his victims the
+while, for all he held them cheaply.
+
+Mahdi, the man-monkey, sniffed about the stump, and capered foolishly. He
+looked with ape-like curiosity at Heeley's horse, then made an impish
+jump at the animal, grinning and growling savagely. The horse threw up
+his head, snorted in terror, and pulled back, dragging Heeley with him,
+broke free, and bolted into the night. Cursing wildly, Heeley ran for his
+revolver. He ran with his nose on to the barrel of it.
+
+One was there before him--the Missing Link. The revolver was held in
+Mahdi's shaggy paw, pointed straight at Heeley's head, and the animal
+gibbered in guttural fury, snarling and showing ugly white fangs. It was
+a sight to deter the boldest; it shocked Dan Heeley, the Bold Dan Heeley,
+who had never trembled at the sight of a living thing--when he had the
+drop on it--and he drew up sharply and recoiled a step.
+
+Then he swore a big black oath, and his right hand went to his hip. It
+was an unwise action; the Missing Link anticipated the evil intention and
+fired. A second revolver fell from Mr. Heeley's right hand. Dan's
+shooting arm was broken.
+
+The Missing Link advanced with movements and howls significant of
+horrible ferocity. Dan Heeley backed before it, white to the lips. At
+this point the Professor plucked up courage and advanced upon Heeley.
+
+Dan offered no resistance, his arm was broken, and he was completely
+paralysed by the insistence of the monster attacking him. Five minutes
+later Dan, Heeley, the Bold Birragua Boy, was securely tied to a tree,
+with about three fathoms of inch manila, and the Professor's cash box,
+with its proper contents increased by certain sums that were illegally
+Heeley's, was safely bestowed in its locker again.
+
+"What was the price you said the Government had put on your head, Dan, my
+boy?" asked Professor Thunder. "Two hundred and fifty of the best? It's
+mine, Daniel."
+
+Heeley made no reply; his frightened eyes were fixed on the man-monkey
+cowering in the shade, with the revolver tight in its right hand.
+
+"The Missing Link will watch over you to-night, Dan," continued the
+Professor, jauntily. "He's as strong as ten men, so don't try tricks with
+him."
+
+But the Professor did not get that £250. At day-break, to Heeley's great
+amazement, the huge monkey cut him free, and made no attempt to resist
+his flight. Nicholas Crips had very satisfactory reasons for not being
+mixed up in a long, legal ceremonial such as the handing of Heeley over
+to the police would have entailed. Nicholas remembered a certain strange
+adventure in Bigg's Buildings, and his desire was to give the police of
+Victoria as wide a berth as the most exclusive officer could possibly
+long for.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A CURIOUS MISCHANCE AT BULLFROG.
+
+PROFESSOR THUNDER freely admitted that Nickie the Kid was by far the best
+Missing Link he had ever met.
+
+"There ain't your equal in the whole profession, my boy," he said,
+clapping the man-monkey heartily between the shoulder blades, "and if you
+go on improving your interpretation and developing the character, by the
+Lord Harry, I believe it'll be worth our while to do a world's tour one
+of these days."
+
+In consideration of Mahdi's perfections the Professor had twice
+generously raised his salary by half a-crown a week.
+
+"There isn't a Woolly Man o' the Woods or a Wild Man from Borneo now on
+the roads' drawing the salary you are, Crips," said the Professor. "Two
+pounds two and six a week is princely pay for a Missing Link. Let me tell
+you there are stars playing Romeo and Hamlet that aren't getting such
+good money, my boy."
+
+Nickie certainly deserved his munificent salary, as he was the best draw
+in the museum, and was improving the attractiveness of the show weekly,
+with bright ideas and new schemes for inciting the interest of the
+Professor's bucolic customers. It was Nickie suggested the idea of a ride
+through Bullfrog town ship in character.
+
+"I'm afraid, my boy," said the Professor, "it's risky--very risky. You'll
+be giving the game away one of them days, and once it gets about that
+Professor Sullivan Thunder's marvellous and only-living Missing Link is a
+fake, the metropolitan press will be down on me like a ton of bricks, and
+I'll come to running a Punch and Judy show at baby parties in my old
+age."
+
+"My dear Professor, have a bit of enterprise," replied the Missing Link,
+"we are not drawing well! Bullfrog wants waking up. Run out the caravan,
+and take a turn through the township, with the cornet playing and me
+riding ahead on the black mare, and we are bound to make an impression.
+Get through at a good bat, and they won't have time to look twice at the
+man-monkey before it's all over. Just a dash through and back to the
+tent, and we can be under cover again before they're fairly out of their
+houses. I tell you, sir, it will make Bull frog wild with curiosity."
+
+Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic, favoured the scheme, and Professor
+Thunder agreed. The caravan was prepared, and Madame Marve, wearing a
+much bespangled, but rather seedy, pantomime, fairy costume, stood by the
+box seat, playing a lively air on the cornet; Professor Thunder, with a
+flowing mane of hair and a Buffalo Bill rig-out, drove the horses. From
+the sides of the big vehicle hung highly-coloured posters, while above
+flared the name of the show in long, red letters.
+
+The black mare Nickie rode was one of the three hired to drag the Museum
+into Bullfrog. She was a rather spirited little beast, and had shown
+great perturbation when Mr. Crips, in his full make-up as Mahdi, the
+Missing Link, approached to mount. Now she cantered ahead at a smart
+pace, still nervous about the monstrous thing upon her back. The caravan
+came rattling after, Professor Thunder keeping up a volley of whip
+cracks, and Madame tooting gaily.
+
+It was early in the day, and the township had lain drowsing in its dust
+under the shimmer of a great yellow sun till this astonishing invasion
+struck it, and startled it from its accustomed lethargy. There was a rush
+to windows and doors, men fell over each other struggling from Harvey's
+bar, a sudden mutiny arose in the little wooden school, and children
+swarmed at the windows, and poured pell-mell from the doors. The people
+of Bullfrog caught only a fleeting glimpse of a huge monkey crouched
+man-wise on a gaily caparisoned pony, of Madame Marve in her fairy
+costume, and the gaudy caravan, as the small procession dashed past.
+
+But Constable Cobb, who was drowsing against the shoemaker's doorpost,
+saw the amazing thing on the horse approaching as in a dream, and
+professional zeal uppermost in his mind, he dashed into the toad, and
+grabbed at the rein. The mare, already much distressed, lost her head
+entirely at this rude intervention of the law, and rearing high on her
+hind legs as she beat the air with her hoofs, plunged wildly, and then
+bolted, leaving Constable Cobb on the broad of his back, half stifled in
+the dust, with the imprint of a horseshoe on his elegant helmet.
+
+The mare did the circuit of Bullfrog at a furious pace, with the Missing
+Link hanging about her neck, and slinging to her ribs with insistent
+heels. Never had Bullfrog experienced such a shaking up. People came
+running in all directions, eager to see this marvellous thing. The
+township was almost obscured in its own dust, and through the clouds of
+her own creating came the little mare, scattering the horrified
+inhabitants, who caught only fleeting glimpses of the huge, hairy
+creature sprawling in the saddle.
+
+When Nickie at length regained his stirrups, and worked himself into an
+upright position, he found the mare racing along a rough road between
+walls of bush, heading towards Tollbar, whence she had come on the
+previous day.
+
+Nickie the Kid was not expert as an equestrian. So far he had clung to
+the horse with desperate tenacity, and now that he had recovered his
+mental grip to some extent he could think of nothing to restrain the
+animal's wild career, but he did think of the awful possibilities of his
+position, one of which was an apparent certainty. The horse would carry
+him back to Tollbar, to its owner's stable, the township would be drawn
+together by the extraordinary spectacle of a horse bolting through the
+place mounted by a gigantic monkey, the fraud would be discovered, and
+then the inhabitants would deal in their own gentle, characteristic way
+with the man who had been party to Professor Thunder's shocking
+imposition. Two days earlier Tollbar had patronised the museum.
+
+These cheerful thoughts occupied Nickie's mind while the mare was
+negotiating about five miles, and wearing much of the wool off Mahdi, and
+not a little cuticle off Mr. Crips; but he was saved the dread ordeal he
+anticipated by another disaster. The mare caught a hoof in a rut and came
+down heavily, and presently Nickie recovered consciousness, lying on his
+back, blinking at the blue sky, gratified to find that he was not dead.
+
+The mare was out of sight, and the Missing Link was at large in the bush,
+with a damaged head, a sprained ankle, a cracked rib, and a pain in every
+limb. He arose and shook some, of the dust off himself, and then limped
+from the road and sat in the shade of a tree, with his back to the butt,
+to consider his lamentable situation and feel his injuries.
+
+Nickie's position was certainly an unpleasant one. He could not walk back
+to Bullfrog, because he would be certain to meet people by the way, and
+the sight of a Missing Link prowling in the Australian hush might lead to
+disaster. In any case, the sprained ankle made a five-mile walk
+impossible. Nickie could not strip off his monkey make-up, because of the
+very scanty undergarments he possessed.
+
+"What the deuce am I to do now?" groaned the victim, gently chafing his
+bruises.
+
+He was answered by a shrill scream, an energetic and most piercing
+feminine yell of terror, and lifting his startled eyes he beheld a young
+girl, clad after the manner of a settler's daughter, standing a few yards
+away, staring at him with wild horrified eyes. The girl's fingers were
+clutching her hair, her face was white, her limbs convulsed, she seemed
+glued to the spot, incapable of movement, but power of screaming remained
+with her, and she exerted it to the utmost--she screamed, and screamed,
+and screamed again, the bush resounded with the echoes of her agonised
+cries.
+
+For a moment Nickie stared back in blank surprise. It had not struck him
+that he was the occasion of this frantic demonstration, but presently he
+realised that a little screaming was excusable in an excitable young lady
+coming suddenly upon a full-grown missing link drowsing under the gums in
+her native bush.
+
+Nickie arose, he advanced a step. His intentions were honourable he meant
+to offer a full explanation, with apologies, but the girl did not wait;
+at his first movement she swung round and fled through the trees, still
+screaming.
+
+The Missing Link sat down again with a sigh. Anyhow there must be a
+residence near, he was not destined to perish in the bush; but the girl
+would rush home with a shocking tale of some hideous monster in the
+paddock, her male relations would come to hunt down that monster. Nickie
+had had experience of such hunters; he remembered that they carried guns,
+and that they were not disposed to delay shooting in order to argue with
+a monkey about the sacredness of life.
+
+Mr. Crips had a ready mind, and his peculiar career had taught him the
+necessity of prompt action. With eager hands he pulled off his monkey
+skin, rolled it up, and stuffed it into a hollow log, with the head-piece
+and mask; and then with his singlet he rubbed the make-up off his face,
+rubbing off a fair amount of hide in his eagerness. After this he set to
+work tearing up the grass tufts, and creating evidence of a struggle. The
+blood from a cut in his head came in most useful; he made as big a show
+as possible with it. Nicholas Crips next lay down amid the ruin he had
+wrought.
+
+Nickie had not long to wait. About twenty minutes later he saw an elderly
+man and a youth coming hurriedly through the trees, looking about them
+eagerly. Each carried a gun. He sat up and beckoned, and they hastened to
+him, not a little astonished to find a strange man clad only in torn
+singlet and drawers lying there in the depths of the bush.
+
+"Hullo, mate," said the elder man, "what's amiss?"
+
+Nickie groaned aloud. "Horrible!" he gasped. "Horrible! Horrible!"
+
+The man raised him. "I say, you've been knocked about," he said. "Have
+you seen anythin'?"
+
+Nickie nodded feebly. "Yes," he said, "a monkey, an orang-outang, or
+something, as big as a man. An awful brute."
+
+"Well, I'm blowed!" gaspe the man. "Then Nell was right. My daughter came
+home in a fit; she said a monkey bigger'n me had chased her."
+
+"It's true," murmured Nickie. "It chased me. We had a terrible fight. It
+tore all my clothes off about a mile and a half back there near the
+creek. I escaped, and it chased me here, and we fought again. I thought
+my end had come, when it must have heard you, and it made off through the
+bush towards the mountain, going like the wind."
+
+"By cripes!" ejaculated the youth in an awed voice.
+
+"Did he hurt yeh much?" asked the man.
+
+"My ankle's sprained, and I've got a broken rib and a cut head," answered
+Nickie; "but losing my clothes is the worst. What is a man to do without
+his clothes?"
+
+"You get up to the house, Billy, and bring down my Sunday things," said
+the settler. "We'll fix you up all right, mister," he added, addressing
+Nickie the Kid, and Nickie smiled warily, and uttered feeble thanks.
+
+They dressed Nickie and took him up to the house and fed him, and then
+drove him back to Bullfrog in their spring cart, delivering him into the
+hands of Madame Marve, who manifested great joy on receiving back the
+unparalleled Missing Link in fairly good condition.
+
+Nickie had explained to the settler that he believed the orang-outang
+that attacked him had escaped from Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels
+and that he intended claiming damages.
+
+Later in the day Nickie and the Professor drove out and recovered Mahdi's
+outfit from the hollow log, and that evening the Missing Link was again
+on view, and exciting much interest, although he sullenly refused to any
+further demonstration for the edification of the people of Bullfrog.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WIDOW AND THE LINK.
+
+THE Museum of Marvels was "resting" at Devil's Head. The Professor was
+resting, personally and particularly, on a stretcher bed in a small, hot,
+fly-infested room in "The Devil's Head" Hotel, pending the mending of
+divers injuries sustained in a disaster that put the show temporarily out
+of action. Thunder did not travel with his own horses, finding it much
+cheaper to hire a team to pull his caravan from one pitch to another. The
+pair of bays engaged to tow the museum, and traps and wares from Field
+Hill to Corner Stone had been so upset by the eccentric conduct of a
+frenzied inebriate, who fled along the stone road in a woman's
+nightdress, being pursued by purely imaginary griffins, dodoes, unicorns
+and dragons, all in primary colours, that they wheeled and bolted with
+the whole caboodle, and running into a bridge railing upset Professor
+Thunder and Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels into Billy's Creek,
+greatly to the detriment of the show, and to the serious discomfort of
+the Professor who was pulled from under Ammonia, the gorilla, just when
+that amusing animal had almost succeeded in stifling him in the slurry
+for which Billy's Creek was famous.
+
+While the Professor rested and underwent repairs, and whiled his time
+negotiating for damages with the owner of the horses and the frantic
+person in the woman's nightdress, Matty Cann, the' Living Skeleton, and
+Nicholas Crips, the Missing Link, were allowed their liberty. The Living
+Skeleton went home to the bosom of his affectionate family, with stern
+instructions to carefully regulate his diet, and Nickie went on to
+Winyip, sworn to preserve professional secrets, and bound to hold himself
+in readiness for resumption of duties at a day's notice.
+
+Nickie wore a good suit of store clothes, he bore on his rascally head
+quite a reputable hat, his linen was fairly meritorious, his boots were
+above reproach, he wore socks like a man accustomed to luxuries, he was
+clean-shaven, he jingled money in his pocket. In his varied career Nickie
+had had ups and downs; true, his "ups" had been brief, but they were
+frequent enough to keep him almost in touch with respectability. At
+Winyip, a considerable township in its way, he passed quite easily for a
+dramatic artist taking rest and change to dissipate brain fag, the result
+of too studious application to his art.
+
+When the Professor was himself again he called his company together and
+descended upon Corner Stone. The caravan remained at Corner Stone for a
+night and a day, and then moved on to Winyip. Nickie the Kid, for some
+reason of his own, strongly opposed the trip to Winyip; possibly because
+he was reluctant to appear as a mere man-monkey with a demoralised head
+and a rudimentary tail in a township in which he had recently figured to
+great advantage as Crips Nicholas, the eminent Shakespearean actor.
+
+Winyip proved to be an excellent show town and Mahdi, the Missing Link,
+came in for a good deal of attention, although his performance was more
+subdued than ordinarily, and he showed little of the actor's natural
+anxiety to monopolise the limelight, but a local moral reformer wrote to
+the "Winyip Advertiser and Porkkakeboorabool Standard" enlaring on the
+shocking action of a depraved showman in keeping this poor heathen, which
+was "almost a human creature," confined in a cage like a beast of the
+field. The disputation that followed was kept alive by Professor Thunder.
+
+People flocked to see the wonderful man-monkey, and on the afternoon of
+the second day came a tall, stern woman of about forty. She was nearly
+six feet high, her nose was large, her chin small and sliding, and she
+wore glasses. Across her left arm she nursed a large, shabby umbrella,
+and her habitual expression was that of one who has discovered a smell of
+drains.
+
+This big woman was very curious. She peered into every hole and corner,
+she examined Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, very closely through her
+glasses, looking critically at his features, and was equally curious with
+the monkeys. She even inspected Professor Thunder with such minuteness,
+and with such an air of one who has at last detected a shameful
+imposition, that at length the celebrated showman exclaimed with some
+grandeur: "Excuse me, ma'am, but I'm not an exhibit."
+
+"Oh," gasped the female, "I beg your pardon. My name is Martha Spink; I
+live at 'The Nook.' Do you happen to know a--eh--theatrical person named
+Nicholas--Crips Nicholas?"
+
+Professor Thunder had learned caution. "I fancy I have heard the name,"
+he said.
+
+"You haven't such a person in your employ?" said the lady.
+
+"No," said the Professor, thoughtfully, as if mentally running over the
+names of numerous celebrities on his long pay-roll. "No, I am sure there
+is no artist of that name in my company."
+
+"I'll find him," said Mrs. Spink, decisively, firing up, and making
+dangerous gestures with her umbrella. "Mark me, I'll find him, and when I
+do--" The sweep of her bulky gamp nearly knocked Bonypart off his
+platform.
+
+"Carefully, ma'am, carefully," said the Professor, "you came near
+breaking a valuable exhibit then. Living Skeletons have to be handled
+gingerly, madam. I am sure the ruffian deserves all you can give him. May
+I inquire what villain's work he is guilty of?"
+
+"He's been proposin' marriage, that's what he's been doin'," cried Mrs.
+Spink. "I'm a widder lady, and he's been proposin' marriage to Me."
+
+"Dangerous, dangerous--very dangerous," said the Professor.
+
+The Living Skeleton looked apprehensively to wards the cage of the
+Missing Link, and Mahdi growled fiercely and retreated into the shadows.
+
+"He stayed at my house two weeks," continued the widow, "paid nothing for
+board and residence, but made me an honourable proposal of marriage, and
+then ran off. But I'll find him."
+
+The Professor was called away to give his scholarly address on the
+Darwinian hypothesis for the edification of his patrons, and the fierce
+female hung on the outskirts of the audience, and examined the exhibits
+suspiciously. When Thunder came to that scale of creation represented by
+the Missing Link, Nickie exhibited great ferocity, growling and gnashing
+his teeth in a most terrifying manner, but keeping sedulously to the
+shadows at the back of the cage. Madame Marve stirred him up with the
+long stick kept for the purpose, and the Professor dwelt with feeling on
+the worst features of the animal's character. Mrs. Spink peered with
+especial eagerness.
+
+Mrs. Martha Spink paid twice for admission before sundown, and at night
+she came again. She betrayed extraordinary curiosity concerning the
+characteristics and peculiarities of missing links, and her concern had a
+powerful effect upon Mahdi. His diffidence was so marked that the
+Professor was constrained to excuse it in his descriptive address. "The
+poor animal is afflicted with toothache to-day," he said. "Like the best
+of us he has his morbid moments."
+
+"S'pose she'll be lookin' yeh up agen t'day, Nickie," whispered the
+Living Skeleton through Mahdi's bars next morning.
+
+The Missing Link snorted. "I wish the Professor would bet out of this
+hole," he said. "If that terrific creature discovers the truth, I am
+lost."
+
+Nickie had not left the cage all night, preferring to sleep in his skin
+rather than risk a sudden descent on the part of the enemy.
+
+"What'd yeh do it fer?" said the Skeleton; "a great lath-an'-plaster
+she-emu like that, too."
+
+"Not having anything else to do, Matthew," moaned the Missing Link. "I
+always was tender with women."
+
+"Well, yiv gotter look out, ol' man. If she nails yer, yer a gone link,
+that's er cert."
+
+"For two pins I'd retire from the profession," said Nickie. "It exposes a
+man to too much temptation."
+
+The lorn widow did not appear that morning. The afternoon passed, and
+Mrs. Spink had not been heard from. There was a good crowd in at
+half-past eight, and Professor Thunder was giving his instructive and
+entertaining description of the life and habits of the Missing Link in
+the dark jungles of Central Africa. The Link had recovered confidence
+somewhat. He ventured to show himself at the front of the cage, he
+capered and gibbered, and at that point where Thunder dwelt upon the
+courage and fierceness of the man-monkey in fighting for his young,
+Nickie jumped forward, clawing through the bars, and uttering
+blood-curling growls.
+
+At that moment his eye fell upon a face that thrust itself forward out of
+the press; his gaze encountered the eager scrutiny of a grim, green eye,
+behind glass. It was the eye of Widow Spink.
+
+"It's him," cried the widow. She rushed for ward; she battered at the
+Missing Link with her umbrella, and the terrified animal retreated to his
+straw. "You villain!" screamed Mrs. Spink, "you double-dyed, lyin'
+villain, I've got you!" She was reaching as far as possible through the
+bars, prodding at the man-monkey, and the audience were gazing in stupid
+surprise.
+
+"Madam, madam, my dear madam!" expostulated the Professor, "you must not
+irritate the animals."
+
+He pulled her back from the cage.
+
+"Don't tell me," cried the justly-indignant widow. "I know him I'd know
+him out of a thousand, robber of the widow and the orphan that he is."
+
+The Professor spoke to her soothingly.
+
+"There, there, madam, do not excite yourself, you'll be all right in the
+morning."
+
+"Meanin' I'm drunk!" shrieked the widow, raising her gingham
+threateningly. "I know what I'm talking about. He promised me marriage."
+
+She made another lunge at the Missing Link.
+
+"Yes, he did; he said we'd be married in a fortnight, the villain, and
+I'll have the law on him."
+
+"Most distressing hallucination," said the Professor, pressing Mrs. Spink
+through the crowd. "Will nobody take charge of the poor lady?"
+
+He pushed her towards the door, the crowd following, delighted with the
+unexpected diversion, confident that Mrs. Spink was drunk or mad. The
+widow retired, fighting, the people pressing her.
+
+"I'll have the law on him," screamed Mrs. Spink. "I'll have a thousand
+pounds damages for breach of promise. I'll teach him, deceivin' a lone
+widder, the villain!"
+
+Outside she enlarged upon her wrongs, telling the crowd of the infamous
+conduct of these actors, who go about the country imposing upon innocence
+and virtue. She went off, still flourishing her sturdy gamp, and
+reiterating her determination to have the law on the infamous Missing
+Link.
+
+"That widow means business, Crips, my boy," said the Professor after the
+show; "somethin's got to be done. She swears she'll see a lawyer, and she
+will. Now look here, I can't have my Missing Link dragged into a law
+suit. If you get sued for breach of promise, you're no good to me, the
+game's up so far as missing links are concerned, and my show's reputation
+gone. Is this to be the end of a long and honoured public career? What's
+to be done?"
+
+Madame Marve, Letitia, Matty Cann, Nickie, and even the educated pig sat
+in council to consider ways and means of averting the pending
+catastrophe, and Nickie bore the fierce rebukes showered upon him with
+proper humbleness. Never was seen a more depressed and humiliated missing
+link.
+
+The next day was Sunday and in the morning, dressed becomingly in his
+part as the naturalist and teacher, Professor Thunder called upon the
+Widow Spink at "The Nook," and held a long consultation with her. As a
+result of the Professor's arguments, the lady was persuaded to visit the
+Museum of Marvels and have a private audience with the Missing Link.
+
+The widow said she was going to town to see a lawyer on Monday morning,
+but agreed to Professor Thunder's proposal, and called on the Missing
+Link in his cage.
+
+"I think, madam, you will admit that you are mistaken," said the
+Professor, at the door of the cage, "and will see that you have cast a
+serious aspersion on the character of an innocent animal and the
+genuineness of a reputable museum." He stirred up the huge, hairy body
+lying in the straw in the Missing Link's cage. "If you come inside the
+creature may attack you, but you are welcome to do so."
+
+Mrs. Spink, after looking closer at the hideous head the Professor lifted
+out of the straw, and brought close to her own at the back bars, decided
+not to enter the cage. She had a painful impression that perhaps she was
+mistaken after all.
+
+"I admit, madam, that we build the animal up to some extent to make him
+look large. That is a mere showman's trick, and innocent enough in
+itself, but I am determined to convince you that this is a genuine
+man-monkey, as your story has done me much mischief in my profession.
+Pray look closely at the beast."
+
+Mrs. Spink did look closely. There was not the slightest doubt that the
+animal she beheld, although somewhat faked, was one of the monkey tribe.
+She confessed her error, she became contrite and tearful, and promised an
+apology if the Professor would not persist in his threatened action for
+defamation of character.
+
+"I was told the wretch was seen with your company," said the tearful Mrs.
+Spink.
+
+When the widow was well out of range, Nickie crept from the tent of the
+Egyptian Mystic, and breathed a great sigh of relief.
+
+"I shall probably never make love to a widow again," he said, sadly;
+"they are so ungrateful."
+
+He was dressed in his ordinary clothes, and the creature in the Missing
+Link's cage sprang towards him spitting and clawing spitefully. It was
+Ammonia, the Gorilla, in the Missing Link's skin, padded and faked to
+twice his size to deceive a poor, weak woman.
+
+"I believe after all we ought to frighten something in the way of
+compensation out of the gorgon," said Nickie, vengefully. Our reprobate
+hero was a man who knew no remorse of conscience.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MARDI HAS A NIGHT OFF.
+
+PROFESSOR THUNDER was hurt in his professional pride by the signal
+failure of his Museum of Marvels in Rabbit township. In the first place,
+the great impresario had been guilty of a grievous blunder in selecting
+Rabbit for a two-night's pitch, but things had been going so remarkably
+well of late, due mainly to the eccentric adventures of the Missing Link,
+that the boss was getting proud, and was beginning to feel that his
+astounding galaxy of unparalleled attractions would draw well in the dead
+centre of the Old Man Plain. Rabbit township was making his error plain
+to him.
+
+Usually when the caravan bounded into a township, with the little bells
+on the horses jingling gaily, and Madame Marve, dressed in a somewhat
+brief and too youthful costume, enthroned on the box seat, playing a
+rattling tune on the cornet, the people turned out in crowds to welcome
+it, and the children swarmed, eager for a peep at the hidden mysteries.
+
+It was different at Rabbit township.
+
+The caravan dashed into Rabbit with the customary velocity and the
+regulation rattle, but Rabbit did not trouble itself.
+
+"Blarst my eyes!" growled the Professor, when the camp was made; "even
+the dogs didn't bark! What sort of a boneyard is this we've struck?"
+
+As a matter of fact, Rabbit was a moribund township. The rabbits had
+eaten up the surrounding country, and now they were beginning to eat up
+the township. So voracious was bunny that when a man went missing it was
+gloomily concluded that the rabbits had eaten him, and the township took
+no action, subsiding in despair. Most of the people had left. Those who
+remained did so because they couldn't afford to shift, or because they
+were too lazy to go.
+
+Professor Thunder had been doing good business, and his expenses were
+light. He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in
+trying to amuse Rabbit township. Rabbit was incapable of being amused.
+
+There remained an open hotel at Rabbit, and the Professor called on its
+proprietor to gather useful information concerning the inhabitants, their
+tastes and habits. He found Schmitz, the portly proprietor, sprawling on
+his own bar counter, embracing a bottle of squareface with a loving hug.
+The two arms of Schmitz caressed the bottle, his cheek was pressed
+amorously to the cork. The eye of Schmitz was small and round, and seemed
+to be filled with pink cobweb, his hair was in a state of tumult, and was
+full of chips, suggesting that he had recently slept on the wood heap.
+Schmitz had a fierce, red moustache, that looked as if it had been
+trimmed on a block with an adze.
+
+The publican blinked stupidly at the world-famous showman for a moment,
+trying to pick him out from a number of unnatural curiosities careering
+before him, and then he said, decisively: "Ged oud of mein 'ous'."
+
+"My dear fellow," said the Professor, urbanely, "I suppose you will serve
+me with some little refreshment?"
+
+"Refreshmend?" muttered the landlord. "Refreshmend?" His intellect
+struggled to grasp the situation. Suddenly it became luminous. "Nein!" he
+yelled. "I vill nod you mid refreshmend serve! Nein! I keep him all for
+meinseluf. Ged oud!"
+
+"But, Mr. Schmitz," expostulated the Professor.
+
+"Ged oud of mein 'ous'. I know vot you want, ain't id? You want to buy
+mein liquer. Veil, I don'd sell some liquer to nopody. Der ain't
+sufficiency for mieinseluf. Ged oud! Tam you, ged oud kvick!" Schmitz
+caught up a bottle in quick rage, and dashed it at Professor Thunder.
+
+The Professor pursued his investigations no further. The tent was
+pitched, the museum was arranged for an afternoon performance, and the
+unrivalled showman, to whose enterprise Rabbit owed this chance of
+improving its mind and enlivening its leisure, took his stand outside,
+and endeavoured to awaken the township to a sense of its opportunities.
+For three-quarters of an hour he poured forth a stream of eloquence at
+the top of his pitch. After the first quarter of an hour he was
+appreciated by a tired dog, which drifted up, and barked at him in a
+desultory way. Later, he was becoming discouraged when a tattered youth,
+wearing a hat that nearly engulfed him, came and stared at him
+open-mouthed, stupidly, silently, for twenty minutes. This youth was the
+township idiot. Nobody else troubled to come out and see what all the
+noise was about.
+
+"We're got to shake up the township, Nickie," Thunder said.
+
+"Well, go out and shake it, Professor--I'm tired."
+
+"No, Nickie, you've got to do the shaking. See here, the place is dead. I
+don't believe it ever heard of Professor Thunder and his world-famous
+Missing Link; I don't think it has discovered that anything unusual has
+happened along. You must escape from your cage to-night, and scare the
+life half out of some of these miserable mummies, then I'll come along
+and recapture you. That should excite some curiosity, and perhaps bring
+in money to-morrow'."
+
+Nickie yawned lazily. "Oh, all right," he said, getting back to his
+straw; "but mind there are no guns. I've an objection to being hunted
+with guns--it's too wearing."
+
+That night a large, hairy animal of a species hither to unknown at
+Rabbit, made its way along the deserted main street of the township. The
+animal walked upright, like a huge monkey, its long hands swung below its
+knees. Mahdi had not gone a hundred yards when a large, stout man lurched
+out of the shadow of a tree and fell upon him.
+
+The large, stout man smelt strongly of consumed drink. He clasped the
+Missing Link to his breast for a moment, then swayed back, holding on
+with one hand. In the other hand he flourished a bottle.
+
+"Goot day, mein bruder; how are you?" he gurgled. Nickie growled his most
+terrible growl, and the stranger made some little show of surprise. "Vot
+is it der madder?" he said. "Blitzen, dot's a peaudiful winter overcoad
+vot you year mit der summer. Come'n haff er drink." He held the bottle
+towards Nickie the Kid. It was a bottle of square gin. All kinds of
+bottles were fascinating to Nickie.
+
+Mahdi faltered. Nickie was very partial to square gin, and although the
+Missing Link had a proper sense of duty, the inner man was weak.
+
+"Helup vourseluf, Sharlie," said Schmitz.
+
+Nickie helped himself. He helped himself liberally. Schmitz fell on
+Mahdi's neck, and embraced him freely. "Mein goot friend," he gurgled, "I
+like you. You shplended fellow. Dot's so, sure. Come mit me, my 'ous' to,
+und ye make a night mid it." He embraced Nickie again.
+
+"All der same," he said, in a puzzled tone, "I don't know me vy you vear
+dot hairy overcoad dose hot nides. Haff er drink."
+
+The Missing Link, standing grimly outlined in the darkness, raised the
+bottle in his two prehensile paws, and drank health to Schmitz.
+
+"Goot man," said Schmitz, embracing him again. "Now con mit me to my
+'ous' to, und we make the night." He grappled with Nickie, and the two
+seesawed towards Schmitz's hotel. The place was in complete darkness; the
+bar door was wide open.
+
+Schmitz dragged Nickie through the bar, with much bumping and more
+breaking of glass, into a back compartment, and there he fumbled for
+matches, forgot his mission, and sang a German song very drearily,
+stopping suddenly to say:
+
+"Vere haf you gone mit yourseluf, mein goot friend? Vot is der madder mit
+der lightness."
+
+He fumbled again. Nickie was in no hurry, he had the gin bottle.
+
+Schmitz found the matches, and lit a candle on the shelf. He turned
+drunkenly towards Nickie, and beheld what must have been a strange and
+mysterious sight to a commonplace Dutchman in his own home. Sitting on a
+chair facing him, with the gin bottle raised to his lips, was a mighty
+monkey--a great, red, hairy ape, as large as a man.
+
+The publican scratched his head wonderingly.
+
+"Mein gracious!" he said.
+
+"Dot iss a sdrange ting dot haff happened mit you, Sharlie," he said, in
+a wondering, small voice.
+
+"Sharlie!" he called. "Sharlie!" The Missing Link gave no reply.
+
+"Pless mein soul!" gasped the Dutchman.
+
+Suddenly a gleam of intelligence shot through the publican's boosy gloom.
+He pointed a finger straight at Nickie, lurched towards him, crossed the
+room in a stagger, and drove his inquiring digit against the mysterious
+visitor. The mysterious visitor was solid.
+
+Schmitz was beaten.
+
+"Sharlie," he said, "is it true dot you vos, or is it true dot you
+aind't?"
+
+Nickie offered him the bottle in a friendly way, and Schmitz took it and
+drank. The draught seemed to abolish all problems.
+
+"Now ye make dot night, Sharlie," said Schmitz. He staggered into the
+bar, and returned with an armful of bottles--all full of liquor. With the
+adroitness of an expert he knocked the head off a bottle of schnapps.
+"Dot is for you, Sharlie," he explained. The Missing Link assumed
+possession.
+
+Schmitz knocked the head off another.
+
+"Dot one for me iss," he said.
+
+Then the night began. The Dutchman drank and sang and danced, and a
+hundred times assured the Missing Link of his undying friendship. True,
+he had occasional spasms of reawakened amazement, when he would gaze at
+the man-monkey in stupid wonder, saying: "I don't understand me,
+Sharlie," but Nickie's extremely human manner of disposing of gin seemed
+to reassure him, and he would burst into song again.
+
+In due course Nickie grew jovial, and lost all sense of his make-up and
+his professional reputation, and he sang, too, and caper exuberantly
+about Schmitz's kitchen, while Schmitz, reclining in a corner on the
+floor, shook his fat sides with gargantuan roars of laughter. The sight
+of this gigantic ape dancing a Highland Fling stirred the drunken
+Dutchman to wildest merriment; he howled with delight.
+
+"Goot, goot! Some more Sharlie!" he yelled. "Dance, dance. Mein Gott,
+dot's der greadest sight I effer haff see me."
+
+This was the strange and awful spectacle Mrs. Schmitz tumbled upon,
+returning from a week's stay at Rattletrap. Her screams brought the
+red-headed stable boy to the rescue.
+
+Two minutes later, while Mrs. Schmitz was assuring one section of Rabbit
+township that her poor, miserable husband had sold his soul to hell, and
+was at that moment dancing fiendish dances with the devil himself in her
+kitchen, a red-headed youth, almost beside himself with horror, was
+stirring up the other section with the tale of Dutchy Schmitz howling mad
+in the hotel, while a great, hairy, hideous jim-jam capered on the floor
+before him.
+
+Rabbit was stirred at last. Professor Thunder was made unpleasantly aware
+of the fact when he discovered a crowd of patriots surrounding Schmitz's,
+preparing to burn out the devils that possessed it, having peeped timidly
+at the windows; and assured themselves of the unearthly nature of
+Schmitz's guest.
+
+The Missing Link, with Schmitz on his arm, came rolling from the back
+door, roaring and brandishing a bottle. The crowd broke and fled before
+them, and a minute later the bosom friends were rocking down the road
+together, singing insanely.
+
+How to recapture Nickie was the showman's real trouble now. He knew that
+persuasion would be useless with Nickie in his present state, and
+resolved to try force. He grappled with Nickie in the street, and Nickie,
+now feeling like a king in his own right, and valiantly asserting his
+majesty, resented this impudent interference, and fought with fine, royal
+spirit. For a moment or two Dutchy failed to realise the situation, and
+then, roaring like a bull, and swinging a bottle of stone gin, he went at
+the Professor.
+
+The bottle took Thunder in the back of the head. It ought to have killed
+him, but it didn't--it merely stretched him on the road unconscious. When
+he recovered he was on a couch in the hotel, with his head wrapped in a
+tablecloth, and day was breaking. No body knew what had become of Dutchy
+and the Missing Link, and the Professor returned to the tent, with a soul
+seething bitterness. He found Nickie in his cage, sleeping soundly, and
+alongside him on the straw lay the bulky form of Schmitz, the publican,
+in whose hand was still clutched a bottle of stone gin. The Missing Link
+had returned hospitality for hospitality, and side by side like brothers
+dear the carousers slept.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HOBBS VERSUS MAHDI.
+
+IT was shortly after noon, and the day was warm and still. No one was
+stirring in Waddy. Professor Thunder had given up the idea that his
+eloquence could conquer the general lassitude, and was snoring in the
+tent of the Egyptian Mystic. Madame Marve was shopping in the township,
+and Matty Cann, the Living Skeleton, had come down from his throne and
+was curled up on a horse-rug. Ammonia, the orang-outang, sprawled on the
+floor of his cage, and the other monkeys were chattering angrily.
+
+Nickie sat with his back to the wall of his compartment, sweltering in
+the hot garb of the Missing Link, drowsing and day-dreaming of beer. He
+thought he was sitting in a sylvian glade, with an attendant nymph, where
+a cascade splashed over crystal rocks, and the cascade was beer--all
+beer.
+
+"Ello there!" said a thick voice. Someone was shaking the bars of the
+cage. "Get up and do some thin', blarst yer eyes! What have I paid yeh
+for?" continued the voice.
+
+Tish had taken sixpence at the door, and admitted a patron without giving
+due warning to the exhibits. It was a rule that the public was not to be
+admitted to the Museum of Marvels without proper notice being given to
+the company. The precaution was necessary to obviate the chance of the
+Egyptian Mystic being discovered in the act of preparing onions for the
+stew, or engaged upon some other menial task, to the destruction of her
+dignity and mystery as a distinguished foreigner with supernatural
+powers. Or the people might have come upon the Missing Link in heated
+debate with the Living Skeleton, or in the hearty enjoyment of a long
+beer, or possibly reading a sentimental novel.
+
+Nickie bared the long tusks of his mask in a malignant grin, but did not
+stir. He couldn't be expected to waste his arts and graces on a common
+drunk.
+
+The man rattled the bars of the cage again. "'Ello! 'Ello!" he cried,
+"shake yourself up! Le's see what yer made of. Get goin'. Give us a
+specimen of yer arts."
+
+The Missing Link yawned hideously, stretching his long hairy limbs, and
+blinked his little eyes at the visitor.
+
+"Tha's not so bad," growled the man. "You're a bit of an artist, anyhow,
+but I reckon you ain't nothin' t' some of the Missin' Links I've come
+across in my time. I've been in the business myself, so you can't monkey
+me, my man."
+
+Nickie sat up, growled in his best style, and scratched with the dull
+laziness of a tired ape.
+
+"'Ere, 'ere," cried the man, "'ere, 'ere, Bravo! Not too rotten That's
+first rate monkey business, take it from Ivo Hobbs. Let me interdoose
+myself. Mr. Mahdi. Ivo Hobbs, late o' Kitts and Killjammer's Whole World
+Show."
+
+Nickie walked along the back wall of his cage two or three times with
+simian ungainliness, turning with a peculiar spring that Mr. Crips had
+learned from the Orang.
+
+"Good enough!" said. Ivo Hobbs. "Good enough. There's no ticks on you,
+you're a stoodent, I can see. How's the game mate?"
+
+It was necessary to convince this beery intruder of his grievous error in
+taking Professor Thunder' celebrated Missing Link, Mahdi, from the
+tangled jungles of Darkest Africa, for a cheap fake. Nickie sprang to the
+perch with great agility, caught it with one hand, slowly drew up a leg,
+hooked a hind claw to the bar and hung so, blinking unconcernedly.
+
+"What oh!" said the audience, with enthusiasm.
+
+"That's a bit of all right. You're a husker. But there ain't no reason
+for this reticence with a brother professional. I was the bearded woman
+with Kitts and Kiljammer's show for over two years, I was Shake, mate."
+The visitor thrust a hand through the bars.
+
+Nickie dropped from his swing, landing lightly on four paws, ambled
+daintily across the cage, ran up the bars, and seated himself on a limb
+propped in a corner.
+
+The audience applauded generously.
+
+"Bli' me," he cried, "you're a fool t' waste them talents on a side show
+like this. You orter hitch on at one o' the great circuses."
+
+Nickie slid down the rope and resumed his leisurely scratching,
+prospected his ribs for a few seconds, and then made a sudden dash at
+Ammona, the orang, grappled with him through the bars, snatched away a
+little fur, and maintained a fierce scratching and snapping squabble for
+half a minute or so.
+
+This was one of Nickie's most effective bits of business. Whenever he
+heard an audience casting doubts on his authenticity as a genuine member
+of the monkey family, he work up a spluttering dispute with Ammonia and
+the battle was so realistic that it dispelled all doubts.
+
+"Well I'm jiggered." murmured Mr. Ivo Hobbs. "I could have sworn he was a
+fake." He pressed more closely to the bars, and peered at Nickie with a
+critical, if somewhat beery eye, and the Missing Link posed languidly in
+a monkey attitude. Suddenly Ivo jabbed at him with a stick. The stick was
+pointed, and it took Nickie in the ear.
+
+"Hell!" cried the Missing Link, bounding across his cage.
+
+Ivo burst into a roar of laughter. "That's all right, old bloke," he
+said. "You're a bonzer, but we all have our weak moments."
+
+Nickie was furious. This assault, combined with the heat and burden of
+the day, had dispelled his natural apathy. There was always a loose bar
+in the front of his cage, placed there for effect, so that the Missing
+Link might work up an occasional sensation by an apparent attempt to
+break away. Nickie dashed at this bar. It broke before him, and he came
+through, falling bodily on Ivo Hobbs, and bearing him to the ground. Ivo
+uttered a yell of apprehension. His beery doubts seemed to fly before
+this animal attack, and when he realised that he was being bitten and
+clawed mercilessly, he howled for help at the top of his voice.
+
+Professor Thunder rushed from his slumber, and discovered his Missing
+Link and a total stranger rolling and tumbling on the ground. By this
+time Nickie had inflicted no little grievous bodily harm upon the unhappy
+Ivo, and he allowed Thunder and the Living Skeleton to drag him off, and
+thrust him back into the cage.
+
+Ivo arose in great wrath.
+
+"This is unprovoked assault and battery," he cried, shaking his fist at
+the Missing Link. "I'll have the law on you."
+
+"But, my dear sir," protested the Professor, "you must have provoked the
+poor animal."
+
+"Animal be blowed. You can't jolly me. Think I don't know a fake when I
+see one, I'll have him run in in half a tick."
+
+Professor Thunder endeavoured to argue with Ivo, and hinted at
+compensation, but the injured man fled from the tent in a state of blind
+anger.
+
+"Let him go." said the Missing Link, vindictively. "He won't come back,
+He's had all the damages he wants."
+
+But he did come back. Ivo returned in a quarter of an hour and he brought
+a policeman with him, and on their heels came quite a crowd, Professor
+Thunder, with business-like precision, charged a shilling a head to all
+seeking' admission.
+
+"There he is!" cried Hobbs, "There he is!" He pointed to the Missing Link
+growling viciously and baring alarming fangs at the back of his cage. "I
+give him in charge for grievous assault and attempted murder."
+
+"Come, what's all this, me friend?" asked Constable Dunne, addressing the
+Professor.
+
+Hobbs had evidently had a few more beers to restore his faculties. He was
+now courageous enough, but vague in his mind and unsteady on his legs.
+
+"The man irritated my Missing Link, and the animal attacked him, as he
+deserved," said the celebrated showman.
+
+"Animal be blowed!" yelled Hobbs. "He's 'a man, and I give him in
+charge."
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed the Professor; "The fellow's drunk!"
+
+Constable Dunne peered at the Missing Link through the cage, and that
+intelligent animal never looked more malignant.
+
+"A man" said the officer, dubiously; "sure, he ain't lookin' it."
+
+"Arrest him!" said Ivo Hobbs.
+
+"Devil a wan o' me," answered Dunne. "You'd better proceed by summons, me
+man. 'Tain't me juty to arrist monkeys, an 'twould not be becomin' t'
+the' dignity iv an officer iv th' law, anyway, t' be seen draggin' a
+baste iv thim proportions through the street."
+
+Mr. Hobbs protested indignantly, and beerily, but the constable explained
+that according to a strict reading of the Act, dogs were not liable to
+arrest, "and in the oye iv th' law," he said, "monkeys is dogs."
+Eventually, Ivo Hobbs went away in Constable Dunne's company to take out
+a summons. The policeman endeavoured to persuade him to summon Professor
+Thunder, as the Missing Link's next of kin, but Hobbs stood drunkenly to
+his belief that the monkey was a man, and so the summons was made out
+against Mahdi, and was solemnly delivered, citing the Missing Link to
+appear at the Waddy Police Court on the following morning at 10 o'clock.
+
+"Here's a pickle," growled the proprietor of the world-famous Museum of
+Marvels.
+
+The Missing Link scratched his head over the document. "I'm nothing of a
+lawyer," he said, "but I've had a good deal of experience of police
+courts, and never knew a monkey to be proceeded against for assault--in
+fact, nothing lower in the animal kingdom than a Chinaman is amenable to
+the law."
+
+As a result of a long conference, Professor Thunder went out that evening
+and cultivated the acquaintance of John Lidlow, J.P. John Lidlow, Esq.,
+J.P., was the local butcher, and Professor Thunder found him a very
+companionable man with an amiable weakness for raw whiskey.
+Affectionately they made a night of it, and in the morning they had a
+mutual pick-me-up. The pick-me-up was concocted of knock-me-down rum and
+colonial beer, and ran into several editions.
+
+John Lidlow, Esq., J.P., was uncommonly sleepy and preternaturally solemn
+in court when the case of Hobbs versus Mahdi was called on for hearing.
+Ivo Hobbs explained his grievance clearly, and when the defendant was
+called upon, Professor Thunder stepped forward and explained:
+
+"The defendant, Your Worship, is my justly-celebrated man-monkey, Mahdi,
+the Missing Link."
+
+"Is he a man or a monkey?" asked the court, drowsily, opening one eye.
+
+"He's a bit of both, but mainly monkey, Your Worship."
+
+"It's a lie, he's a man," cried Hobbs.
+
+"Silence in the Court!" said His Worship, with portentous hauteur, "or
+I'll give you ten days for contempt. The defendant must be brought before
+us."
+
+"But, Your Worship," exclaimed the Professor, "it would not be safe, I
+assure you, The animal is wild. He was irritated by this man, it would
+not be safe to take him from his cage. He might attack the court."
+
+"Eh, what's that?" ejaculated the magistrate. "Attack the court? We don't
+allow that kind of thing here. I'd give the beggar twelve months."
+
+Constable Dunne whispered to the court, and Professor Thunder enlarged
+upon the shocking temper of the Missing Link when roused.
+
+"Very well," said the Magistrate, "if he cannot be brought to this court,
+the court will go to him. Justice must be done. This court stands
+adjourned to Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels."
+
+Very gravely John Lidlow, J.P., led the court to Professor Thunder's
+tents, and sedately he established himself behind a table before the cage
+of the Missing Link, and again the case was called on.
+
+"The Missing Link pleads guilty, Your Worship," said Constable Dunne.
+Professor Thunder whispered to him. "Through his next iv kin, Yer
+Worship," continued Dunne.
+
+"With extenuating circumstances. Your Worship," said the Professor. "This
+man attacked my Missing Link with a stick."
+
+The Missing Link at this moment bounded against the front of the cage
+with a blood-curdling growl, making seemingly frantic efforts to get at
+Ivo Hobbs. One of the bars broke before his terrific onslaught, and
+through the apperture Mahdi snatched and snapped at his adversary of
+yesterday, growling horribly the while.
+
+With a 'ell of terror Hobbs fled into a cement barrel.
+
+The Missing Link flopped from his cage, and advanced upon the J.P.
+
+The sight so upset the court in the person of John Lidlow that it sat for
+a moment, staring in blank horror across the table set for its
+convenience, then slowly tilted over in its chair, and fell heavily on
+the back of its neck, picked itself up, and made a bolt for the open. At
+the tent door the court turned for a moment, and cried breathlessly:
+
+"Fined five shillings or two days," and then it dashed out and away.
+
+Professor Thunder paid the fine with the greatest goodwill, considering
+the advertisement an ample recompense. Besides this presentation at court
+was a useful testimony in support of the his claims of the Missing Link,
+and the Waddy Bugle's grave account of the trial under "Police Court
+News" was added to the archives of the Museum.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE KIDNAPPERS.
+
+LOO was a small triangular township, subsisting on agriculture, road
+traffic, and the patronage of thirsty shearers and station hands from
+runs within a half-day's ride of Sawyer's "Emu Hotel," which was the
+incisive point of the triangle.
+
+Thunder's tent was pitched on a small clearing facing the "Emu Hotel."
+and Professor Thunder, clad somewhat after the manner of the bushranger
+in lurid Australian melodrama, in high boots, cord trousers, a red shirt,
+and an immense cabbage-tree hat, stood on a borrowed rum keg at the door
+of his show, and earnestly besought Sawyer's customers to visit his
+unrivalled show and complete their education.
+
+"Roll up, gents, roll up, roll up, roll up!" cried the Professor, in a
+voice keyed to stir the whole town ship. "Bring your families to learn
+how man sprang from the ape, and when the ape's got claws like my
+gorilla's he shows his good sense in springing. Walk in, walk in, walk
+in, all together, one after the other, and witness the most miraculous
+performance of Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic, converse with the
+educated pig, and behold for the first time the amazing Missing Link, the
+wonder of the universe, the only true authentic Missing Link now in
+captivity, certified correct in every particular by the great Darwin
+himself, and approved by all the crowned heads of Europe."
+
+It was Saturday noon, and the township of Loo was rapidly filling with
+convivial shearers. The sheds were cutting out at Dim Distance, Devil's
+Bend, and the Emu, and the men were full of money, and eager for beer and
+diversion.
+
+When a score or so had collected inside, the Professor came down from his
+keg, and assumed the office of lecturer, explaining the quaint physical
+peculiarities of Matty Cann, and the intellectual eminence of the
+educated pig, and then passing to his trump card--the Missing Link.
+
+"Here we have, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "a living exemplification of the
+truth of the teachings o the great Darwin. Behold the descent of man in
+all its stages, from the smallest ape that capers on the rocky
+declivities of the Himalaya Mountains, to the noble Missing Link himself,
+having the splendid proportions of the human man, and almost his god like
+intellect."
+
+One party of four young shearers from Devil's Bend exhibited great
+interest in Mahdi.
+
+"D'yeh mean t' say that animal's worth four thousan' quid?" asked one of
+these.
+
+"Four thousand seven hundred pounds, fifteen shillings, is the exact sum
+what was offered me by the Anthropological Society of Berlin," said the
+Professor, "but I wouldn't part with him for ten thousand."
+
+The shearers marvelled together, and watched Mahdi's movements with deep
+attention, and Nickie, acting up to instructions, glowered in the shade.
+When a visitor wanted to look into details, the Missing Link displayed
+quite human astuteness in retreating into cover in the gloom.
+
+"Suppose he's like us in most iv his ways?" continued Bill. "Does he
+smoke, 'r chew, 'r drink?"
+
+"Its considered by the faculty and all the scientific gents that proof of
+his being a near relation to the human race is found in the fact that he
+has a weakness for intoxicating liquors," said the Professor, sadly.
+"We've tried to reform him, but he refuses to become teetotal, showing
+how much a man he is."
+
+Bill and Ben and Mike and Fred applauded these sentiments. Then they
+returned to the Emu bar and had another drink.
+
+"Four thousan' bloomin' quid fer a blanky monkey!" said Bill, and he
+looked dreamily at his companions. "Four thousand quid!" he added. "It's
+a sin."
+
+"Now, supposin' that monkey was to get away! There'd be four thousan' o'
+th' best tearin' round in th' bush fer anyone t' drop on."
+
+"He couldn't," said Mike, "outer that iron cage."
+
+"He could," said Bill, "if he was helped." Ben, Mike and Fred woke up.
+They looked hard at Bill. Bill had a grave, still face. He winked his
+left eye suddenly.
+
+"If he did escape there'd be a reward. I reckon," said Ben.
+
+"Precisely," said Bill; "there'd be a reward. Now, if that Missin' Link
+could escape--if helped--and if there was a reward offered fer his
+capture, what's t' prevent us earnin' it?"
+
+The shearers looked at each other gravely. Then they all winked.
+
+"The spoutin' bloke sez he likes his fill iv tangle," said Bill, "well
+he'll get it t-night. I'm goin t' stand a spree fer me poor relation."
+
+That night at about ten o'clock, when Professor Thunder was concentrating
+the attention of his patrons on the fascinating boniness of Matty Cann,
+Nickie, who was taking his ease on the straw, became aware of a slight
+disturbance at his elbow, between the back of his cage and the tent wall.
+Blinking his eyes he discovered the shape of a man in the darkness. The
+man held a pannikin in one hand, and was offering it through the bars.
+
+"Here, old boy. Here old fellow," murmured the intruder, in a tone one
+adopts in propitiating strange dogs.
+
+He shook the pannikin, and the Missing Link detected the familiar flavour
+of rum, good red-rum, bush rum. Nickie sniffed again, and backed away,
+growling a low, guttural growl. The Missing Link had a great tenderness
+for rum, the smell of it excited profound longings, but he wanted time to
+deliberate. What was the game? "These fellows have heard Thunder
+describing Mahdi's fondness for liquor," thought Nickie. "They want to
+make him drunk, and see him play up. It's a lark. Shall I encourage them?
+I can do it safely to a moderate extent. It's like flying in the face of
+Providence missing drinks that are thrown at you. I'll encourage them to
+the extent of one drink, anyhow. Here's luck."
+
+The Missing Link seized that pannikin of rum, the Missing Link took a
+good, long pull, and in less than half a minute was curled up on the
+straw, dead to the world, a thoroughly hocussed man-monkey.
+
+When Professor Thunder came to shake up his justly celebrated Link, he
+found the cage empty, and a bar wrenched from its place in the back wall.
+He drew his own conclusions--conclusions most unfavourable to Mahdi--and
+used his own language. He closed his show, and went raging about Loo
+township in quest of his stray freak.
+
+Nickie the Kid awakened from a death-like sleep in the early hours of a
+warm summer Sunday. Dawn steeped the bush in crimson, the smoke of a
+dying camp-fire curled high in the air and its top most spiral caught the
+red glow of the young sun. About that camp-fire, twisted on their rugs
+and blankets on the grass in the quaint attitudes of out-door drunks, lay
+four shearers, Bill, Mike, Ben, and Fred. Near them were scattered
+various bottles, all empty.
+
+Nickie rubbed his eyes with his hairy paw, and stared at the recumbent
+figures. His head seen as capacious as an iron tank, and every inch of it
+held a special and independent ache. The Missing Link was trying to
+think.
+
+Understanding came in a flash. He had been stolen from the show. These
+rascals had given him hocussed rum, and had got him away, probably tied
+to one of the horses. His aching limbs hinted at that, and he could see
+the horses grazing among the trees.
+
+Nickie reviewed the situation. He was tethered to a tree, his bonds were
+stout, and his captors had not made sufficient allowance for the almost
+human intelligence of Professor Thunder's star performer. All about were
+scattered the utensils of a late supper, and with the aid of a stick the
+Link contrived to draw a knife within reach. With this he promptly cut
+the rope.
+
+When free Nickie went quietly and deliberately to work to overhaul an
+open swag. He took a coat, pair of trousers, a pair of boots, and a hat,
+and with these under his arm retired to the bush to make his toilet.
+
+An hour later three shearers, Bill, Fred, and Ben, riding at a gallop
+along the high road to Loo, came upon a man with a bundle walking
+cheerfully in the same direction. The horsemen pulled up.
+
+"Hi, mate, have you seen anythin' of a strange sort of animal on this
+road?" cried Bill.
+
+"Have I?" answered the man. "My word, I have! A great, big, red, hairy
+bunyip 'r somethin' charged out o' th' bush 'bout a mile back, bowled me
+over an' went howlin' down th' road in a cloud o' dust."
+
+"Which way?" gasped Bill.
+
+The pedestrian pointed in the direction of Loo. "That's th' way he went,"
+he said. "Cripes, I'd a' thought I seen a fantod on'y I bin teetotal fer
+a year."
+
+The shearers whipped up, and rode on at a gallop, and the man grinned
+after them with exquisite joy. "Well, life's worth living after all."
+said Nickie the Kid.
+
+Before Sunday night it was known at Loo that the Missing Link, which had
+been stolen or had escaped, was once more safely bestowed in Professor
+Thunder's Museum, and when the show opened on Monday there was something
+like a run on it. With the curious crowd came Bill, Ben, and Fred, Mike
+having been left to keep camp. At the sight of the shearers before his
+cage, the Missing Link simulated a paroxysm of ungovernable rage. He bit,
+glared, roared, and reaching his mighty claws towards Bill, made
+murderous sweeps in the air, as if desirous of disembowelling that
+hapless young man.
+
+"That's curious." said Professor Thunder, regarding the shearer sternly.
+"My Link don't often go on like that, and when he does he has good
+reason. See here, young gentlemen, what did you have to do with the
+purloining of my man-monkey Saturday night?"
+
+Bill protested fiercely. "Never put a hand on yer blanky monkey. Wouldn't
+touch him with er forty-foot pole."
+
+"Well, he as good as says you did."
+
+Bill grinned. "You can't send a bloke up on th' say so of a Missin'
+Link," he said. "You can't put a monkey in the witness box t' swear a
+man's character away."
+
+"I don't know," said the Professor. "That's a delicate point of law, but
+we may as well have a word with the constable about it."
+
+The shearers didn't stay to take part in the consultation with the
+constable--Professor Thunder had not expected them to. "They lit out in a
+great hurry," he explained to the Missing Link at lunch time. "With a bit
+of engineering I might have shaken a few pounds out of them in the way of
+compensation. I was too hasty. Now, we'll have to leave their punishment
+in the hands of heaven, and there is no money in that."
+
+"Heaven has punished them already, Professor," said the Missing Link,
+with a wide, simian smile.
+
+"How that?"
+
+Nickie's smile deepened. "There was eleven pounds in the pocket of the
+trousers I borrowed to come home in," he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE.
+
+THUNDER'S Museum of Marvels was showing at Wildbee, and doing only
+moderately, much to the Professor's disgust.
+
+Nickie the Kid was hurt, too, at the scant attendance.
+
+He had been acknowledged by experts to be the best Link ever exhibited in
+Australia, and Links included all sorts of hairy freaks, wild men of the
+woods, and shaggy eccentrics from Borneo; but Nicholas Crips could not
+rest satisfied as a mere interpreter of monkey character.
+
+Nickie reached out and developed, and his newest device was a dinner in
+the cage, an actual dinner, in which Madame Marve, bewitchingly dressed
+in a costume that was a cross between the uniform of a hospital nurse and
+the garb of a French peasant girl, acted as waitress, and the Missing
+Link figured as the diner. Actual edibles were used, and a "practicable"
+bottle of beer.
+
+This turn gave the Living Skeleton great concern. "I wish yer wouldn't do
+it, Nickie," said Matty, from his pedestal next the cage of the Missing
+Link. "Et's awful tryin' to a pore bloke what ain't 'ad nothin' fer
+dinner but a dry biscuit t' 'ave 't sit 'ere, patient as an owl, while
+you're hoggin' into ther grub, an' pourin' fresh beer into yersell
+regardless iv expense."
+
+"Get out," replied the Missing Link. "Call yourself an artist. Every pro.
+has to suffer for his art. You have to suffer for yours, going short in
+your eating so as to keep in proper condition. You wouldn't have a fellow
+artist sacrifice his chance of becoming celebrated just because it isn't
+quite pleasant to you to be a spectator at the banquet?"
+
+"Art he blowed!" said the Living Skeleton. "Give we a yard o' tripe an' a
+scoopful iv mashed potatoos."
+
+"You aren't cut out for a public career. Matty you ought to abandon
+Living Skeletons and get a good eating part."
+
+"Wish t' 'eaven I could, but there's ther missus an' ther kids t' think
+of."
+
+"Well, you can turn your head away when the banquet scene's on."
+
+"What if I do; can't I smell it?"
+
+There was no escape--poor Matty Cann had to be sacrificed to the
+requirements of art.
+
+Professor Thunder spread himself to make the new act a success; he
+procured a clean tablecloth, and napkin, a crush hat and black opera coat
+(both second-hand) were purchased for the Missing Link. A table, a chair,
+crockery, edibles, a bottle of beer, a walking stick, and an eyeglass
+were the rest of the properties.
+
+When the Professor had explained to his patrons his gallant capture of
+the only living Missing Link in the jungles of Darkest Africa, and had
+put Mahdi through his paces, to the great amazement of the bucolic
+audience, he said:
+
+"And now, ladies and gents. I have the pleasure of introducing to your
+notice an entire change of programme, exhihiting Mahdi, the Missing Link,
+in his wonderful act, called 'Civilisation.' You have, seen, ladies and
+gents, this here astonishing animal showing the natural qualities of the
+brute creation; you will now be privileged to see that side of his nature
+which approaches more nearly to humanity. This act, I may tell you,
+ladies and gents, though a miracle of training, would not have been
+possible if wasn't that the Missing Link has a good deal of human nature
+in his composition."
+
+After this the opera cloak was handed in to the Missing Link, and he put
+it on with awkward, monkey movements; he donned the crush hat, put the
+eyeglass in his eye, and with the walking' stick promenaded the cage with
+some uncouth affectations of humanity. Meanwhile, Madame Marve had
+carried the small table into the cage. She spread a cloth, put on a few
+articles, and offered Mahdi a chair.
+
+The Missing Link sat down, took off his hat, and closed it. Then he
+examined the bill of fare, and pointed to an item. While Madame was
+fulfilling the order Mahdi lounged in his chair, playing with the
+serviette, which he took from the ring, and spread on his lap.
+
+After this Nickie went through the process of ordering and eating a
+dinner, the aim being to do the thing not too humanly, but as a trained
+animal might do it, throwing in a good deal of coarse humour, at which
+the audience roared.
+
+The turn was a success, the spectators applauded vociferously.
+
+"Ladies and gents. I thank you," said the Professor, bowing. "You have
+witnessed a triumph of teaching and training over brute animal nature,
+and I hope that when you go out you'll speak well of a show that has been
+in some measure the victim of a hireling press here in Wildbee."
+
+"A marvellous performance, indeed," said a thin, shabby, sandy man,
+coming forward with a notebook. "Almost miraculous."
+
+"True for you, sir." said the Professor eyeing the man suspiciously.
+
+"Perhaps you can tell me. Professor Thunder, what branch of the Simian
+family this--this creature of yours belongs?"
+
+"Well," said the Professor, "he is said to be most closely connected with
+the gorillas."
+
+"Nonsense, man! Gorilla, rubbish! Look at that pelvis, sir, look at those
+arms. That's no more a gorilla than I am."
+
+"May I ask to whom I have the honour of speaking?" asked the Professor,
+in his coldly polite manner--his most superior professional attitude.
+
+"My name is Andrew McKnight, if that's any good to you. If that is a
+gorilla, sir, where are his vertebral processes, tell me that? And how
+comes it that his legs are almost as long as those of man?"
+
+The Missing Link, who had doffed his airs of civilisation, and was now
+crouched in the straw, began snarling at this. It seemed almost as if Mr.
+McKnight's criticism were making the poor beast angry.
+
+"You must remember, sir, that this animal is not of any known species,"
+said Professor Thunder, who had a large collection of stock phrases for
+such discussions. "He is in a manner a creature apart."
+
+"I should say so. Would you permit me to take cerebral measurements of
+your so-called Missing Link? I am interested in this matter, having
+opposed the Darwinian hypothesis for many years."
+
+Here Mahdi's snarling became diabolical, and he leaped about in a
+terrifying way.
+
+"Certainly," said the Professor, "Certainly, Mahdi is always at the
+service of science. But I warn you he is apt to be treacherous with
+strangers. He almost tore the arm off Professor Fitzpoof, of Dresden, and
+he nearly disembowelled a doctor in Dublin in 1895."
+
+"Oh," said the gentleman with the notebook, doubtingly, "in that case I
+had better not, perhaps."
+
+Mr. McKnight did not go away for some time. He lingered, watching Mahdi
+with great curiosity. He came back in the evening, too, and hung about
+the museum for hours. The Professor observed him with growing resentment.
+He suspected the intentions of the sandy man, and he was not wrong.
+
+Next day, shortly after the show opened, McKnight came again, with the
+same notebook and the same suspicious air. He brought five men with him,
+all solid men in Wildbee, one of them the local constable. This party
+assembled near the cage of the Missing Link, and listened carefully while
+the Professor reeled off the familiar story of the taking of Mahdi. They
+witnessed the stirring and entertaining dinner, and when the Professor
+had finished, and Mahdi had resumed his conch in the straw, McKnight
+stepped forward.
+
+"And do you expect us to believe all that rubbish, Professor?" he said.
+
+"I do," said Professor Thunder, with dignity, "but I don't care if you
+don't."
+
+"Well, we don't, sir, and what's more, we know you to be an impostor--a
+rank impostor--and as editor of the Wildbee 'Guardian,' it is my duty to
+expose you and your shameless fraud upon the public of this town and
+district."
+
+At this the Missing Link came out of his straw, growling, and springing
+to the perch hung by one hand, with his legs drawn up in a very
+monkey-like attitude.
+
+"What the deuce do you mean?" thundered the Professor, manfully.
+
+"I mean this," said McKnight, addressing the crowd "you have been
+victimised. That creature is no monkey. It is a human being of some
+kind."
+
+Nickie the Kid felt his heart sink, but he made a big bid for popularity.
+He capered about the cage and thrusting his face through the bars
+jabbered excitedly.
+
+"You're talking rubbish, man," cried the Professor.
+
+"Am I?" retorted McKnight. "Then perhaps you will have the audacity to
+tell us you have a monkey that can talk? Last night I crept under your
+tent at the back there when there were no people in the show, and I heard
+your absurd Missing Link talking, and what's more, he was teaching a
+magpie to talk."
+
+The Missing Link here made a fierce jump at Ammonia, who happened to be
+clinging to the dividing bars, caught him, and clawed viciously. Ammonia
+clawed back, and they fought a yowling battle that went a long way
+towards modifying the impression created by McKnight's remarks.
+
+The Professor was consternated for a moment, but the diversion Nickie had
+created gave him a chance to collect his wits and presently he began to
+laugh. He laughed uproariously. He clapped the Living Skeleton gaily on
+the back. "Laugh, you idiot!" he hissed, under his breath. The Living
+Skeleton laughed, and Madame Marve joined in the seeming merriment. She
+did not know why, but it seemed advisable.
+
+"Well sir," snorted McKnight, "you've finished that idiotic cackle,
+perhaps you will explain how a monkey comes to be acquainted with the
+English language."
+
+"Certainly," said the Professor, cordially, "I might prefer to kick you
+off the premises, but I will explain. Mahdi!" he called imperiously.
+"Forward, Sir."
+
+The Missing Link turned from his argument with Ammonia, and lurched to
+the bars.
+
+"I have not been able to teach my Missing Link to talk, though I've tried
+hard. He can do almost anything else, but not that. However, I dare say
+we can get him to address this intelligent audience. Mahdi, you see this
+nice gentleman here." Professor Thunder pointed to McKnight, "What do you
+think of him?"
+
+"I think he is an ass!" said the Missing Link, with emphasis.
+
+At this there was a yell of delight from the crowd, and even McKnight and
+his party were astonished.
+
+"There," cried McKnight, "what did I tell you? What does that prove?"
+
+"You hear, Mahdi?" said the Professor; "the gentleman wants to know what
+that proves?"
+
+"It proves I know an ass when I see one, answered the Missing Link.
+
+"You daylight robber! You unblushing fraud!" yelled McKnight.
+
+"Stay," cried the Professor, with dignity. "Is it possible, sir, you have
+never heard of the art of ventriloquism? I am a ventriloquist. The voice
+you heard was my voice thrown into the mouth of the Missing Link. In this
+way we are teaching a magpie to speak to the man-monkey as a new feature
+of my marvellous entertainment. As to your libellous accusations, sir,
+you will probably hear further on that point from my solicitor, and now
+good-day."
+
+"Be me sowl, this bates cock-fightin', McKnight," said the constable.
+"Th' monkey's right, Mack. Sure, it's an ass yiv made iv yersilf this
+day."
+
+When McKnight and his party had gone, and the museum was empty of
+patrons, the Professor mopped his brow, and drew a great breath.
+
+"It's lucky we were prepared for that emergency," he said.
+
+"I dunno," said the man-monkey; "why shouldn't a Missing Link talk,
+anyhow?"
+
+"Look here, Nickie, you're wantin' to be too talented," said the
+Professor. "Your overweening ambition will ruin everything. Why, bless my
+soul, you be wanting to shave clean and have a vote presently."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+AN ADVENTURE AT 'TWEEN BRIDGES.
+
+"BONY, my friend, I am weary of this," said the Missing Link.
+
+The Living Skeleton, who had been drowsing on his chair, beat the flies
+off and groaned.
+
+"So'm I." he replied, "but what's a cove t' do?"
+
+"Sneak my key out of the Professor's tent, and let's go and have a drop
+of something."
+
+"It ain't t' be thought of, Nickie," said Matty Cann, "where'd my livin'
+be? The Professor ud give me the run, an' there's the missus an' the
+kids."
+
+"No fear, he can't pick up Living Skeletons at every Street corner.
+Living Skeletons are rarer than you think. Why, a man of your physique
+could get a Living Skeleton billet almost anywhere. What you want is a
+little more impudence and self-respect Matty. An artist like you ought to
+be able to make his own terms, and not be tied up like a calculating dog
+or a two-headed calf."
+
+"D'yeh think so?" said Matty, eagerly.
+
+"Of course I do. Now, you just pinch the key of my cage. We'll trot out
+and have a drink. No one will be a penny the wiser."
+
+It was early in the afternoon of a midsummer day. Professor Thunder's
+Museum of Marvels was on show at 'Tween Bridges. The show was open for
+any casual sixpence but business in agricultural centres is dead at this
+hour, and the Professor and his wile slept in the tent of the Egyptian
+Mystic, and Miss Letitia, who was doorkeeper at the outer tent, overcome
+by the heat and burden of the day dreamed of that splendid time when she
+was to be acclaimed queen of the bare-back riders of all nations and
+generations.
+
+Nickie thirst had been nagging at him for two hours past. He always
+contended that the Missing Link's skin was provocative of a great
+drought. He pleaded with Matty, the bone man, appealing artfully to his
+professional pride, for Bonypart loved to feel in exalted moments that
+his position as the living skeleton was not insignificant after all.
+
+"We can slip on overcoats, trot over to the Bridge Inn, have a drink, and
+return before the Professor wakes." whispered Nickie.
+
+"I couldn't trust meself near th' counter-lunch. Nickie. I couldn't," Mat
+replied.
+
+But in the end the Missing Link had his way. Bonypart pulled on trousers
+and coat over his tawdry tights, Nickie turned back the ingenious
+head-piece and mask of Mahdi, the man-monkey, so that it hung between his
+shoulders, donned an overcoat and a pair of the Professor's knee boots,
+and the two slipped under the tent, and made for Peter's Bridge Inn, on
+the outskirts of a dusty township.
+
+An hour later the Missing Link and the Living Skeleton were sitting under
+the pile bridge a mile above the township, with a bottle of whisky
+between them. Bonypart was eating bread and cheese with an avidity which
+demonstrated the abandonment of all professional instincts. Nicholas
+Crips was drinking whisky slightly diluted with creek water. His drinking
+cup was a rusty sardine tin.
+
+Two hours later the Living Skeleton and Mahdi, the man-monkey, snored
+side by side in the shade of the bridge, the creek rippled at their feet,
+the sun blazed on the bushland on the left and right, and the whisky
+bottle stood between them.
+
+Meanwhile, Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was decorated with a
+placard, reading:
+
+"Closed on account of illness in the family."
+
+Professor Thunder himself was racing about the township and through the
+surrounding scrub, seeking his missing exhibits, fearing the worst, and
+promising himself the satisfaction of a terrible vengeance when he laid
+hands on the recreant pair. He knew that Nickie had gone off in his skin
+as the Missing Link, and realised the danger of a possible exposure. To
+communicate his loss to the people of 'Tween Bridge would practically
+mean giving the game away. At the inn he had been given a description of
+the two strangers who had refreshed themselves with three long beers, and
+then bought a bottle of whisky and certain edibles, and taken the road to
+One Tree Hill. Thunder recognised the description, and his language
+shocked Peters, the publican, who had once been a sinner and the champion
+bullock driver of the Western District.
+
+"Bread and cheese!" groaned the Professor, as he thrashed about in the
+scrub. "That Living Skeleton 'll be as fat as a pig."
+
+At about ten o'clock that night Dan Reynolds, riding from One Tree Hill
+to 'Tween Bridges, and thinking of Annie, the Cockie's daughter, whom he
+had left at the slip-rails, was amazed at a terrible apparition that
+arose before him on the moon-lit road. It was a strange, shaggy creature,
+half monkey half-man, covered from the top of his head to the knees in
+thick, crisp, tufted hair.
+
+Dan's horse snorted and, came back on his haunches, remaining so for an
+appreciable space of time, sitting up, glaring at the curious monster
+with dilated eyes and inflated nostrils, and Dan clung to the nag's neck
+and glared too, even more astonished than his horse.
+
+Never had Dan Reynolds beheld such an animal, never had he heard of its
+like, the horror of it out did all the fabled bunyips and Tantanoola
+tigers he had ever dreamed of. It was loathsome in its ugliness, capering
+there in the dust, brandishing a whisky bottle in the air, and uttering
+quaint, half-human yells and strangest feature of all, Reynolds noticed
+that it wore high, piratical hoots, coming well above the knee.
+
+Dan uttered a yell of mortal fear, Dan's horse gave a snort of terror,
+and bounding forward bolted at top speed down the track, rattled over the
+bridge, and dashed into Peter's yard, tearing down a gate and upsetting a
+water-butt in his rash flight, and Dan clung to his neck all the way, to
+be brushed off when the terrified steed climbed into the stable over half
+the door.
+
+The racket brought rush of men from Peter's bar. They gathered Dan
+Reynolds out of the garbage, and carried him into the kitchen. After a
+long beer Dan was able to describe the bunyip he had seen in the
+moonlight on the One Tree Road.
+
+Costello said it was a true jim-jam; he knew the breed well. He asked to
+be put on to the brand of whisky Reynolds had been drinking.
+
+"Jim-jam, be jiggered!" cried Reynolds. "By ripes, I ought t' kno a
+jim-jam when I see one, I've met plenty. Tell yeh, I'm ez sober ez a
+turtle, an' I seen bin with me own naked eyes, not three yards off,
+jumpin' round on th' road, howlin' somthin' awful an' shakin' a bottle in
+the air."
+
+Peters thought it might be a bunyip. He had heard of a bunyip in Pig
+Creek.
+
+Then Watkins had an inspiration "By gum," he cried, "I know what!" He
+turned eagerly to Reynolds. "'Bout my height was it?" he said, "with
+reddish hair all ever him, an' long arms reachin' to his feet almost?"
+
+Reynolds nodded, "Yes, yes," he said, "it's Perfessor Thunder's Missin'
+Link from the show up back o' the school. I was in there--I seen him.
+He's a terrible-lookin' big monkey, next to a man. The show's closed, an'
+the Perfessor's' bin huntin' all over th' place after some-thin'. That's
+what--it's his Missini' Link fer a quid."
+
+Reynolds gave further explanations, there was more excited talk, and then
+Watkins suggested an expedition to capture the monster.
+
+"You can bet the showman 'll be glad to pay a bit t' have him back. He
+mus' be scared about losin' him, else he wouldn't have kep' it dark.
+It'll be a lark, an' it means drinks round at least."
+
+So it came about that a party, armed with guns and club and carrying
+strong ropes, started out from the Bridge Inn, under the guidance of Dan
+Reynolds, to capture the Missing Link, supposed to be at large in the
+vicinity of McCarthy's paddock.
+
+Nickie the Kid had awakened from his slumber under the bridge, had
+partaken further of the whisky, then divesting himself of his overcoat
+and replacing the mask and head-gear of Mahdi the man-monkey, had gone
+forth into the bush to proclaim his kingship to the trees, and awaken the
+echoes of the hills with Bacchic song. He was enjoying a song and dance
+near the spot where Reynolds came upon him, when the hunters discovered
+him. The sight filled them with proper awe and great discretion.
+
+Mahdi looked a truly formidable brute, capering there in the shadow of
+the gums, and his cries, stifled and made animal-like by the mask, added
+to the qualms of the Party.
+
+Nickie saw the hunters on the chock-and-log fence ready to retire
+precipitately should he advance with homicidal intentions, and a vague
+idea that he was performing professionally before an attentive audience
+took possession of his bleary mind. He capered fantastically, and made a
+foolish attempt to climb a tree. Then he jumped up and down like a monkey
+on a stick, throwing out his long arms, and growling ominously.
+
+"By cripes, he's er dangerous beggar," said Scott. "He'd tear yer limb
+from limb. Better cripple him. I think."
+
+Scott raised his gun and fired. Fortunately, Scott was nervous, and
+missed, but the miss was a narrow thing, and Nickie heard the ping of the
+bullet and the plunk as it buried it in the bark of the tree behind him.
+
+Suddenly a spasm of comprehension came to Nickie, despite the whisky, and
+he made a leap the gum-butt, and hastily entrenched himself. He was being
+fired at, and it was neither pleasant nor healthy to be fired at, that
+much he realised. He peered, monkey-like, from behind the tree, and made
+an effort to grasp the situation. Scott was taking aim again.
+
+"No no," said Watkins, "we mustn't kill him unless it's necessary. He's
+very valuable. The Professor says he's worth a matter o' four thousand
+pounds. Let's scatter an' surround him, come up on him from all points,
+an' knock him out with the sticks. Scott and Peters holdin' their guns
+ready t' pot him if he gets hold of anyone."
+
+This plan was adopted after some argument, and the party of hunters
+scattered, and commenced to close in towards Mahdi, the man-monkey, going
+very warily. Nickie had forgotten everything by this, however, and
+sitting with his back to the tree was drowsing, and faintly asserting
+that he was a king, the most mighty and dazzling' of all monarchs known
+to man, when the valiant hunters fell upon him.
+
+The rush came suddenly, and in a twinkling half-a-dozen clubs were
+battering at Mahdi's unhappy head and thumping on his unfortunate ribs.
+Every man wanted to get a lick at the monster, and every man got it.
+Luckily, Nickie's skull was thick, and the Mahdi head-dress offered it
+some protection, otherwise there would have been an instantaneous and
+fatal termination to the artistic career of Nicholas Crips.
+
+As it was, Nickie's senses were battered out of him, and within a few
+minutes, he was so bound round with rope that he looked like a huge
+Cocoon. Two saplings were cut, and suspended between these, and borne on
+the shoulders of eight men, the Missing Link was carried back through the
+township of 'Tween Bridges. The hunters shouted jubilantly, fired their
+guns, and yelled triumphant songs as they went, and the whole of the
+inhabitants turned out and made a triumphal march of it, pressing forward
+to see the monstrous ape dangling between the saplings.
+
+So Mahdi, the Missing Link, was brought home to the Museum of Marvels.
+When Nickie was dumped on the floor of the tent, Madame Marve screamed
+believing he was dead.
+
+"We shot him first," Watkins explained, "an' then we got at him with our
+sticks."
+
+"Great heavens!" gasped the Professor, thought of manslaughter flashing
+upon him. "You might have murdered him."
+
+"He might 'ave murdered us," replied the veracious Watkins, "Why, his
+struggles was somethin' awful, an' he roared like a lion an' bit an'
+tore. It took ten of us t' down him, an' then he bit through Orton's leg,
+all' knocked Billy Tett sick and 'epless. I reckon it's worth a flyer,
+mister."
+
+"But if he's killed--if he's killed!" cried the tremulous Professor.
+
+Thunder and Madame Marve carried Nickie into he Mystic's tent; the cut
+away the ropes that were choking him, and discovered that although gory
+and bruised, he still lived and breathed, and then the Professor, always
+quick to seize, an opportunity, stood the hunters a whole barrel of beer,
+and till well on to daylight 'Tween Bridges was agitated by drink and
+reiterations of the sensational story of the capture of the man-eating
+Missing Link.
+
+At sunrise, Bonypart returned to the show, contrite and trembling for his
+billet, and by this time Nickie the Kid, his bruises painted with iodine,
+and his battered head liberally patched with court plaster, was sleeping
+off the effects of his overdose of whisky.
+
+The truants had to be on duty early that day, for the story of the escape
+of the man-monkey and, his capture by the heroes of 'Tween Bridges
+brought people from all over the district to inspect the marvel, but
+Madhi remained on his straw in the dark recesses of his cage, stiff, sore
+and filled with bitterness, while Professor Thunder explained to his awed
+patrons the animal's amazingly human viciousness, his love for drink, and
+his utterly depraved nature.
+
+"D'yeh think I'm fallin' into fat. Nickie?" whispered the Living
+Skeleton, from his pedestal that evening. "I ate an awful lot o' cheese."
+
+The Missing Link shook his head and groaned. "Next time I get tight I
+won't do it in character," he said, "my realisation of the part is too
+convincing."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE LINK'S LAST APPEARANCE.
+
+IT is not forgotten that Mr. Nicholas Crips was a man of amatory
+instincts; he had a very warm if not particularly sincere regard for the
+sex, and in his brighter moments, when a relapse from his natural
+dilatoriness induced him to have a clean-shave, a perfunctory combing,
+and a general trimming-up, ladies of a certain class approaching the
+middle-ages found him not wholly forbidding.
+
+Nickie's close application to an artistic career as the leading feature
+of Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels had lifted him out of what had
+become an habitual impecuniosity, and in his brief unprofessional moments
+he wore a whole suit and boots that did not openly advertise his sockless
+condition.
+
+In addition, Nickie was leading a fairly fat and easy life; he had put on
+condition; he was quite at his best; and a flirtatious matron might have
+found him a fairly presentable person. Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic,
+was a good wife to Professor Thunder, and a good mother to Letitia,
+according to the lights of show people at the conventions of the game,
+but she was still young enough to appreciate genuine admiration, and had
+sufficient of the vanity of the profession to roll a lively, dark eye for
+effect now and again.
+
+Naturally, the lively, dark eye rolled in Nickie's direction once in a
+way, and Nickie responded with the beams of a tender, grey orb. He had a
+way of languishing a little when only Madame Marve was near, and he
+breathed sighs of simple eloquence.
+
+Mr. Nicholas Crips had the primitive instincts of the pure individualist;
+fine notions of honour and delicate concepts of propriety had no
+influence on his modes of conduct.
+
+It may be inferred in these circumstances that Mr. Crips had no
+compunction, about coveting his neighbour's wife.
+
+Madame Marve had a light heart and a plump waist, She did not take
+Nickie's advances very seriously, but she found a certain piquancy in the
+situation, and was not above a reciprocal sigh or a responsive hand
+pressure.
+
+This unlooked-for development in the internal economy of the Museum of
+Marvels might have provided Professor Thunder's patrons some amazing
+novelties had they been permitted peeps behind the scenes. For instance,
+there were occasions when the public was deaf to Professor Thunder's
+appeals, and resolutely passed by on the other side. On such occasions
+the Egyptian Mystic might have been discovered in the small, back tent,
+with white, well-shaped arms bare to the shoulder, busily engaged
+fabricating an Irish stew for the evening meal. The Museum was very
+partial to Irish stew, even the Living Skeleton liked the smell of it.
+Ten to one the Missing Link would be found hovering about Madame at such
+a time, garbed in his simian costume, but with the mask-like make-up
+turned back, exposing Nickie's florid countenance and rakish grin.
+Possibly at such moments Nickie would presume to squeeze Madame's waist.
+He might even venture to steal a kiss. If so, Madame's protest might be
+forcible, but it would not be vindictive.
+
+Madame was not disposed to quarrel with Nickie; he was a profitable
+adjunct; the Museum had never possessed so versatile a missing link, and,
+as for a little philandering--pooh, it was all in a lifetime.
+
+The tents were pitched at Catcat. The situation was similar to that
+described above, but Professor Thunder had the bad taste to intrude when
+Nickie was in the act of forcibly extracting a kiss in revenge. Madame
+Marve having playfully covered him with flour.
+
+Professor Thunder was a jealous man, and an inflammatory one. He uttered
+a roar that would not have discredited the Missing Link in its native
+jungle in the wilds of Darkest Africa.
+
+"You infernal blackguard!" he yelled.
+
+"Now, Jim," cried Madame Marve in sudden alarm, standing between the men
+with her paste pin.
+
+"Out of my way, woman!" cried the Professor, tossing her aside.
+
+Professor Thunder fell upon Nicholas Crips, and smote him hip and thigh.
+He was not content to smite--he kicked. He kicked hard--and often. His
+fury increased with the measures he took to wreak it.
+
+"Jim! Jim!" pleaded Madame Marve, "you'll ruin the skin."
+
+The Missing Link's skin was an expensive item, but the Professor forgot
+his cupidity in vindicating himself as an outraged husband. He continued
+to kick, and then, taking Nickie by the scruff and the back, he rushed
+him from the tent, and pitched him headlong into the garish day.
+
+There were a few youths and half a score of children loitering about.
+Fortunately, the mask-like structure covering Nickie's nose, cheeks and
+chin, had fallen into place, and what the loiterers saw was infuriated
+man kicking a gigantic monkey, and assailing him with vehement profanity.
+The sight was sufficiently amazing. The children fled, screaming, to
+carry the astonishing news through the township. The youths stood off and
+yelled.
+
+The Missing Link rolled to some distance, and backed against a tree.
+
+"Don't show your nose inside my show again, you dirty crawler!" said the
+great entrepreneur. "If you do, by the Lord Harry, I'll break every bone
+in your body."
+
+People were coming from all directions, and a small crowd had already
+gathered from the adjacent houses. The inhabitants of Catcat drew as near
+as they dared, and gazed in open-mouthed amazement from Thunder to the
+Missing Link.
+
+"I'll teach you to come creepin' and sneakin' into a man's home, tryin'
+t' ruin his happiness," the Professor roared, and he made another dash at
+Nickie.
+
+The Missing Link slipped round the tree, and Madame Marve caught her
+husband, by the arm and dragged him hack.
+
+"What's he done, mister?" asked a bystander.
+
+"What's he done?" bellowed Thunder, the actor instinct in him coming out
+strongly. "What's he done, sir? This infamous scoundrel has tried to
+wreck my home, sir, to blight my peace of mind."
+
+"What, th' bloomin' Missing Link?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the perfidious Missing Link; the ungrateful Missing Link that
+I warmed in this bosom, and that has turned and stung the hand that fed
+him. But now I know all, the villain is unmasked, and if the slimy trail
+of the serpent enters the abode of peace again, by Heaven! I'll beat the
+life out of him."
+
+A crowd had now collected, and when Madame Marve dragged her husband into
+the tent all attention was turned upon Nickie, who cowered against the
+tree, his mind busy on a way out of the peculiarly unpleasant situation.
+Thunder was still storming inside, and presently he reappeared, and
+hurled an armful of shirts, boots, trousers and other human habiliments
+into the air. These were the belongings of Nicholas Crips.
+
+The people of Catcat maintained a respectful distance, not knowing for
+certain what so formidable an animal might do next.
+
+"Better mind out," said one youth; "he bites! He bit the bloke inside.
+Didn't yeh 'ear him say?"
+
+On the whole the attitude towards the Missing Link was hostile. It was
+felt that here was a dangerous brute at large. Several armed themselves
+with stones and sticks. Inside Professor Thunder was still raving to
+drown Madame's rational arguments. Twice he burst into the open with
+fresh invectives for Nickie, and some trifling piece of dress or property
+to hurl at him; but Madame Marve and the Living Skeleton hung on his
+coat-tails and dragged him back.
+
+Nickie had a thought of lifting his mask and letting his humanity be
+known to the crowd, but there were many present who had paid to see the
+show, and these might take it into their heads to resent the imposition.
+Besides, Professor Thunder might relent. On the whole, it seemed better
+to await developments. Crouched against the tree, the Missing Link
+glowered at the people. If they came too near, he bared his fangs and
+growled ominously, and the venturesome ones backed away precipitately.
+
+Somebody threw a clod of earth, and it smote Mahdi on the side of the
+head. The Missing Link sprang towards the crowd with a fearful cry. His
+antics were most alarming. The people ran, but they edged back again, and
+another clod thrown. Then came a stone. A second stone hit Nickie on the
+shin, and with a yell of pain he took cover behind the butt.
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the crowd, and a rush for stones.
+Missiles fell about Nickie in a shower. Suddenly the situation had
+assumed a dangerous complexion. The crowd opened in a circle to get at
+the monster; stones rattled about his head.
+
+With a horse cry, with eyes rolling and teeth bared in a shocking
+grimace, the Missing Link dashed at the spot where the circle was
+weakest, broke through, and went bounding up the township's single
+street.
+
+Believing now that the great monkey was afraid, the crowd trooped after
+him, yelling as they ran, snatching up stones and other missiles from the
+road. Terror lent wings to the Missing Link. He raced up the dusty road
+in the white heat of a blinding summer day, and the stones flew about him
+as he ran.
+
+Those of the inhabitants of Catcat who had had no hint of the partial
+disruption of Thunder's unparalleled show ran to their doors, and beheld
+the hunt with speechless wonder. They saw a huge, monkey-like creature
+speeding up the street, pursued and pelted by a clamorous throng.
+
+Nickie's physical condition was not good, he was ill-trained for a
+footrace, his wind was bad; he felt that he must presently succumb, and
+then Constable Daniel Mack loomed before him as a possible saviour.
+
+Constable Mack had stepped from Hogan's store, drawn forth by the yells
+of the pack. He looked and beheld a terrific creature rushing towards
+him, erect like a man, but covered with thick, short, reddish hair, and
+displaying a face of demoniacal ugliness. Constable Mack had his good
+points; one of them an appreciation of the fact that discretion is the
+better part of valour. He turned to run for his valuable life, but too
+late; the monster was upon him, it grappled with him, it hung on, and the
+pair rolled in the dust together.
+
+The zealous and intelligent officer thought his last day had come, but
+awoke presently to the knowledge that no harm was being done, and a voice
+was crying crying in his ear:
+
+"For God's sake, run me in! Arrest me! They'll kill me!"
+
+Constable Mack sat up in the dust, and stared stupidly at the Missing
+Link.
+
+"Blarst me if it ain't Perfessor Thunder's man-monkey!" he said.
+
+"Yes, yes," gasped Nickie. "Run me in. Be quick about it."
+
+The crowd was forming about them, only refraining from using missiles out
+of respect for the law.
+
+"Be th' holy, th' baste can spheak!" murmured the policemen.
+
+"They'll kill me. Put me in the cell," pleaded the Missing Link.
+
+"Troth an' I will," answered Mack; "but niver a one iv me knows iv ut's
+lagel arristin' monkeys."
+
+Nickie was run in. Next morning he appeared to answer a charge of
+insulting behaviour, inciting a breach of the peace, and assaulting the
+police. Thanks to Matty Cann, a change of raiment was made in the cell,
+and Nickie Crips appeared in court in his proper person, and was fined
+two pounds.
+
+Nicholas Crips paid his fine, collected his belongings from the Museum of
+Marvels, and went forth into the great world again, a man amongst men.
+His career as an artist was ended.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+NICHOLAS CRIPS came back to Melbourne, the image of a reputable and
+orderly citizen. He had accepted office as a billiard-marker in a
+township hotel while his whiskers grew; and now, full-bearded, dressed in
+a new suit of sedate, grey tweed, wearing an excellent hat and whole
+boots, he re-entered the city. His pockets were fairly-well lined, much
+of the proceeds of his professional engagement under Professor Thunder
+having been stored by Nickie as a provision for a long journey he was
+contemplating. Nickie the Kid had mapped out for himself a
+well-considered and wholly excellent scheme of life as a man of
+comparative affluence, but that life must be lived under alien skies.
+
+In the small chamois bag lurking next his heart was the talisman that was
+to make an existence of comfort and good living possible to the vagabond
+and outcast. The diamond is the true philosopher's stone.
+
+Nicholas put in a few days sauntering about Melbourne, swinging a
+neatly-rolled silk umbrella, smoking very excellent cigars. He passed
+several frowsy acquaintances of other days, and on two he bestowed small
+alms. He felt great satisfaction in the fact that none of his former
+companions recognised Nickie the Kid in the well-groomed, well-dressed,
+sleek, whiskered citizen.
+
+On the third afternoon Mr. Crips entered a jeweller's shop, and placing a
+small stone on the pad before the man behind the counter, said:
+
+"Would you be so good as to tell me the value of that diamond, sir? I
+picked it up on the floor of a first-class railway carriage the other
+day, and having no means of testing it, I thought I might, eh, venture to
+ask an expert."
+
+The jeweller took up the stone, examined it, subjected it to a simple
+test, and handed it hack to Mr. Crips:
+
+"A good carbon, but practically valueless," he said.
+
+Had Nicholas Crips received a blow full in the face he would not have
+betrayed greater consternation. His cheeks turned grey, he gripped the
+counter, all his assumed ease fell from him, he dropped every precaution,
+forgot the grim necessity for care and cunning.
+
+"It is not a diamond?" he gasped.
+
+The jeweller shook his head. "It an awful disappointment," he said, "but
+you may be sure you'll hear of it pretty quickly if you ever have the
+luck to pick up a true diamond of that size."
+
+Nicholas hadn't the spirit to thank the man. He turned into the street.
+The buildings swam in a garish light, he felt his head rocking, and his
+feet seemed scarcely to touch the paving stones rising and dipping under
+him like a choppy sea. He drifted into a bar, and drank brandy, and went
+forth again with renewed strength and revived hopes.
+
+The jeweller was mistaken or ignorant, the diamonds must be genuine.
+Nickie selected another stone, and told the same tale at a pawnbroker's
+shop in another part of the city. The benignant Hebrew passed judgment
+after a glance.
+
+"Paste, my boy," he said, "not vorth ninepenth."
+
+Grown rash in his anguish and anxiety, Nicholas Crips visited other
+shops. The experts all told the same tale. The chamois bag held nothing
+but carbon counterfeits! The prospect of a life of ease and elegance
+faded away. It had been a vision, an illusion. Nickie's philosophy was
+not proof against this stroke. He felt broken, beaten. In the seclusion
+of his small room in a respectable suburban boarding-house, Nicholas wept
+and brooded. And now that the possibility of the splendid reward was
+gone, Nickie dwelt upon the fearful risk he had run more than he had done
+in all the long months since he knelt by the murdered man in Bigg's
+Buildings. He realised that in offering these sham stones for inspection
+he had probably done a mad thing. The act might bring the noose about his
+neck, if he were arrested, who would believe the absurd story he had to
+tell.
+
+Nickie had been careful to betray no particular interest in the great
+murder case in the presence of his friends in the Museum of Marvels. He
+knew that the fictitious Rev. Andrew Rowbottom had been inquired for by
+the police as a man who might provide a clue, but the search for him had
+not been warmly followed up, it being assumed that he was some trumpery
+imposter. In any case, his importance was forgotten in a splendid
+dramatic idea entertained by the detectives, inculpating a clever and
+notorious criminal. The notorious criminal proved an alibi, and after
+being a nine days' wonder the great diamond robbery and murder case was
+supplanted in the public mind by an even more sensational crime. Nickie
+in his terror of being associated with the murder had been careful, up to
+now, to betray no interest. He had evaded conversation about it, and only
+occasional papers had come into his hands at the show. Now he was eager
+to know all the evidence, anxious to account for the presence of the
+paste stones in the pocket of a reputable diamond dealer.
+
+Mr. Crips determined to seek out "Mary Stuart." All hope of a comfortable
+future was not lost. "Mary Stuart" must provide for her scape-goat. It
+should be her pleasing duty to clothe and feed that hapless animal for
+the remainder of its days.
+
+In pursuit of his inquiries Nicholas turned up at Whitecliff on the
+following Sunday afternoon. To the immense astonishment of the master and
+mistress of that stuccoed mansion, Nickie was neat and clean, spick and
+span: he wore pince-nez glasses and spoke like a gentleman.
+
+Nickie greeted his brother William with chastened melancholy, his manner
+towards his sister-in-law was courteous and kindly. He talked of
+reformation and a new life, of the honourable and onerous position he now
+occupied in a reputable Sydney business, and of his approaching marriage
+with an excellent, middle-aged, maiden lady of means. Deftly he worked
+round to a tall, aristocratic woman who had appeared a Mary Queen of
+Scots at the memorable fancy-dress ball at Whitecliff.
+
+Brother William groaned, sister Jean sat up very straight, and sniffed
+ominously. "The creature!" she said.
+
+"That woman was no friend of ours, Nicholas," said brother William,
+hastily.
+
+"I met her in your house," said Nicholas, "and from a brief conversation
+I had I was deeply interested. It has occurred to me lately that if she
+still holds the same views she would be of vast assistance to my firm in
+a transaction we are meditating."
+
+"Have nothing to do with her," cried William. "The creature was an
+adventuress; she worked her way into our confidence with trickery and
+fraud, presenting herself in society here as a lady of title. It was
+afterwards proved that she had come to the country as the companion of an
+infamous scamp who at that very time was serving a sentence of seven
+years for attempted burglary and firing on the police. The woman
+disappeared shortly after the occasion you mention. She left the country,
+I imagine. At any rate, the police were pursuing her for some time for
+passing valueless cheques. Please do not mention her name in this house;
+it awakens painful recollections, Nicholas."
+
+Mrs. William sniffed more significantly than before. "Williams cashed one
+of those cheques," she said bitterly, with a venomous glance at her lord
+that told volumes.
+
+Nicholas recognised in that moment that the prospect of an easy,
+well-clothed, well-fed, middle age at the expense of Mary Queen of Scots
+was out of the question. He consoled himself to some small extent by
+borrowing ten pounds from brother William after dinner.
+
+Mr. Crips employed himself on the following day reading up the murder
+case in back numbers of the Age in the newspaper annex of the Public
+Library. He had to read a great deal of superfluous matter, and of many
+idle schemes and excursions on the part of the police before he came upon
+an illuminating little item in the shape of a casual bit of testimony
+from a friend of the dead man. The friend explained that the diamond
+dealer always carried in a small leather bag in his breast pocket a fine
+assortment of paste brilliants, with the deliberate intention of
+deceiving thieves who might attack him at any time. His idea was that the
+thieves would seize this case and make off without prosecuting a further
+search. But the murderer, whoever he was, was not content with the false
+stones; he had secured £5,000 worth of pure diamonds!
+
+The story of the paste jewels was not repeated, and nobody seemed to have
+found any significance in it. At this late hour Nicholas Crips discovered
+so much meaning in it that he went out into the wide Domain to be alone
+among the trees to think it over. His thoughts came back always to the
+crucial point.
+
+"I got the paste brilliants," he muttered. "She got the real diamonds.
+She had them about her when I entered. She knew of the carbons, and she
+stalled me off with them. Lord, what a mug I was!"
+
+Even in his great bitterness of spirit Nicholas could not help admiring
+the woman who had so completely sold him, and raising his hand in a mock
+salute, he said aloud:
+
+"Mary Queen of Scots You're a DAISY!!"
+
+From Prince's Bridge that night Mr. Crips emptied a small bag of
+glittering mock diamonds into the river, and, two days later, he looked
+over the rail of an out going steamer, watching Australia receding in the
+distance, and, to his fertile imagination, the outline on the horizon
+took the shape of a gallows with a pendant noose.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Missing Link, by Edward Dyson
+
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diff --git a/17129-8.zip b/17129-8.zip
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+++ b/17129.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5381 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Missing Link, by Edward Dyson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Missing Link
+
+Author: Edward Dyson
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2005 [EBook #17129]
+[Last updated: August 11, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MISSING LINK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter O'Connell
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MISSING LINK
+
+BY
+
+EDWARD DYSON
+1922
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+DR. CRIPS'S HEALING MIXTURE.
+
+HIS Christian name was Nicholas but his familiars called him Nickie the
+Kid. The title did not imply that Nicholas possessed the artless gaiety,
+the nimbleness, or any of the simple virtues of the young of the common
+goat. Kid was short for "kidder," a term that as gone out recently in
+favour of "smoodger," and which implies a quality of suave and
+ingratiating cunning backed by ulterior motives.
+
+The familiars of Mr. Nicholas Crips were a limited circle, and all
+"beats," that is to say, gentlemen sitting on the rail dividing honest
+toil from open crime. They were not workers, neither were they thieves,
+excepting in very special circumstances, when the opportunity made
+honesty almost an impertinence. The sobriquet coming from such a source
+acquires peculiar significance. The god-fathers of Nickie the Kid were
+all experts, and obtained bed and board mainly by exercising the art of
+dissimulation. To stand out conspicuously as a specialist in such company
+one needed to possess very bright and peculiar qualities.
+
+Mr. Nicholas Crips was blonde, bony man perhaps five feet nine in height,
+but looking taller because of the spareness of his limbs. This spareness
+was not cultivated, as Nickie the Kid was partial to creature comforts,
+but was of great assistance to him in a profession in which it was often
+necessary to profess chronic sickness and touching physical decrepitude.
+Mr Crips despised whiskers, but, as shaving was an extravagant
+indulgence, his slightly cadaverous countenance was often littered with a
+crisp, pale stubble, not unlike dry grass.
+
+To-day Nickie wore a suit of black cloth. It had once been a very
+imposing suit, and had adorned a great person, but having fallen on evil
+days, was dusty and rusty, while the knees of Mr. Crips poked familiarly
+through a long slit in each leg of the stained trousers. The frock coat
+went badly with the damaged tan boots and the moth-eaten rag cap Nicholas
+was wearing.
+
+Mr. Crips was making back-door call, and telling housewives what the
+doctors at the hospital had said about his peculiar ailment which, it
+appears, was an interesting heart weakness.
+
+"Above all, I must be careful never to over-exert myself, madam--those
+are the doctor's orders," said Nickie, in his sad, calm way. "The
+smallest excitement, the slightest strain, and my life goes out like
+that." Nickie puffed an imaginary candle with dramatic significance.
+
+This was the preliminary to a mild appeal for creature and medical
+comforts, and it had two objects--to open the soul to compassion, and bar
+all considerations of manual labour.
+
+Our hero's manner with women was a gentle manly deference; his begging
+showed no trace of servility, but he was always polite. He accepted
+failure with good grace, and did not resent scorn, abuse, or even
+violence from intended victims. He was rarely combative. Fighting was not
+his special gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he
+found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was,
+never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat,
+fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all
+failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish
+self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients;
+but, here and there, a student of human nature found it delightfully
+whimsical. Sometimes it appeared that this spice of egotism sprang from a
+blackguardly sense of humour that found joy in the abounding weaknesses
+and simplicity of the people he imposed upon, but, on the other hand, it
+would be sufficient to show that Mr. Crips was inspired only with gross
+selfishness or to comprehend that the stability of society depends upon
+fair dealing and faithful labour.
+
+Nevertheless there were occasions when Nickie the Kid deliberately
+undertook to earn his daily bread. For a week he served as waiter in a
+six penny restaurant. He had been a "super" in drama and a practical
+crocodile in pantomime and was long in the employ of a fashionable
+undertaker as second in command on the hearse. In this latter billet he
+had to keep his hair dyed a presentable black, but otherwise the duties
+were light, and Nickie might still have been useful mute, only that he
+had the misfortune to get drunk at the funeral of an eminent politician
+and behaved himself in a way obnoxious to the other mourners.
+
+Some credit must be given to Crips for the above in view of the fact that
+he had long, since discovered how unnecessary work was to a man free of
+prejudices and unhampered with conscience. Every man should be master of
+his own conscience, and the exactions of conscience should be subordinate
+to the needs of the body. That was a large part of Nickie's philosophy,
+and he had acted up to it with marked success, but this morning
+housewives were incredulous and tough, and our hero was faring badly.
+
+He entered the yard of Ebonwell, the chemist, and was about to knock,
+when his eye fell upon a well-worn Gladstone bag full of small bottles.
+In the course of long experience as a beat, Nickie had learned the value
+of prompt action. He gently snapped up the bag, and jauntily to the gate.
+Here he collided with a female entering in a hurry.
+
+"Was yeh wantin' anythin', mister?" said the woman suspiciously.
+
+"Good morning, madam," said Nickie, with unction. "Can I tune your piano
+this morning?" His manner was most courteous, he smiled kindly, but he
+did not invite attention to the bag.
+
+"No yeh can't," snapped the woman, "an' a good reason why--coz we ain't
+got a pianner to toon."
+
+"A pity," said Nickie, suavely, "a pity, madam. No home should be without
+the refining influence of good music."
+
+The woman passed in as Nickie passed out, and the latter looked back over
+the gate, and said, "Good morning, lady," with profound respect.
+
+Nickie must have forgotten all about his weak heart; the dash he made out
+of that right-of-way, across the street, down a second right-of-way, and
+into a public garden, would not have discredited a trained pedestrian. An
+hour later Mr. Crips was seated in a secluded spot on the river bank,
+taking stock. He possessed one very second-hand black bag and four dozen
+four-ounce bottles. The Kid's intention in the first place had been to
+dispose of the loot at the nearest marine store, but Nickie was a man of
+ideas, and one had come to him there in his loneliness. He hid his bag of
+bottles, and wandered into the city. After several misses he succeeded in
+begging sixpence to buy cough drops for his influenza.
+
+He paid threepence for the cough drops at a convenient hotel, and took
+them in bulk. With his change he purchased threepence worth of small
+corks. Back at the Yarra Nickie the Kid dissolved one of three gingernuts
+he had taken from the bar lunch in a two pound jam tin of river water,
+and started to fill his bottles. He filled one dozen.
+
+Having explained to a small knot of brother professionals that he needed
+change of air and scenery, Nickie the Kid started out of town that
+afternoon. We next discover him seated under a spreading gum in a
+pleasant sweep of sunny landscape at Tarra, with his trousers in his
+hands, carefully and systematically repairing and renovating the same.
+The frock coat had been "restored," the rag cap was abandoned in favour
+of a limp bell-topper, contributed by the family of a benevolent
+clergyman, and the tan boots were artistically blacked with stove polish.
+Nickie the Kid warbled at his work with the innocent gaiety of a bird.
+
+It was not yet sundown, and Nicholas Crips was clothed, and stood with
+his black Gladstone in his right hand, prepared for the campaign. He had
+had a clean shave, and his face had a sort of calm dignity touched with
+benevolence. He turned round, examining himself, and the coat-tails
+floated gracefully in the breeze.
+
+"Eminently satisfactory," said Mr. Crips. "And now for business." He
+cleared his throat, as if about to commence an oration, and set off at a
+smart pace towards the farm-house whose chimneys peeped over the hill.
+
+A dog barked surlily as Nickie passed up the garden walk, but Nickie knew
+the character and quality of dogs, no beat better, and he recognised this
+one as harmless to man. A woman came to the door, wiping her fat, red
+arms on a canvas apron.
+
+"A very good day to you, madam," said Mr. Crips, lifting his belltopper
+with some grace, and bowing slightly. "I have taken the liberty of
+calling upon you to bring under your attention my celebrated
+medicine--Dr. Crips's Healing Mixture, for coughs, colds, consumption
+indigestion, biliousness and all bronchial complaints."
+
+He took a bottle from his bag and shook it invitingly, his voice was
+respectful and very persuasive, but by no means subservient. Nickie's
+voice was his most valuable possession; it had a note so winning, so
+appealing, that it was only with strong effort that ordinary people could
+resist it.
+
+"No," said the woman, "we ain't got any o' them complaints."
+
+"Headache, earache, toothache, lumbago, Bright's disease?" said Nickie,
+suggestively.
+
+"No." The woman shook her head. "We ain't got nothin' in the 'ouse but
+rhoomertism in me ole man's back. He's bin laid up three weeks with it."
+
+"Dr. Crips's Rheumatic Balm!" exclaimed Nickie, with decision, restoring
+the first bottle to the bag, and producing another of exactly the same
+mixture. "Cures rheumatism in two hours. Gives instant relief in cases of
+neuralgia and sciatica. A little to be rubbed on the affected parts night
+and morning."
+
+The woman took the bottle, examined it closely, shook it up, and said,
+"It looks good."
+
+"It's invaluable, madam," replied Nickie, with quiet conviction. "No
+family should be without it. Two shillings, if you please."
+
+The woman took a bottle, and when leaving, Nickie the Kid turned and
+said, "I shall be back this way in a week, and shall do myself the honour
+of calling on you for a testimonial, if I may?"
+
+At the next farm-house Nickie had a man to deal with. The man began by
+wanting to throw Dr. Crips over the fence, and ended by buying a bottle
+of his Infallible Hair Restorer, and paying him half-a-crown for
+professional advice in the case of a brown cow afflicted with mumps.
+
+Nickie the Kid had put in the busiest day of his varied career, and here
+he rested from his labours. With six and six in his pocket he could
+afford luxuries. That night he slept in a bed at the Harrow Hotel, and
+next morning breakfasted on grilled bacon and boiled eggs. Before
+leaving, he sold the publican two bottles of the world-famous Healing
+Mixture as a pick-me-up.
+
+On the second day the doctor set out to cover as much ground as possible.
+He was astute enough to recognise the wisdom of moving on before his
+customers had time to compare notes. Before noon, he sold six bottles of
+the Healing Mixture for influenza, two bottles of the Rheumatic Balm, and
+one bottle of the same as a certain cure for a peculiar disorder in pigs.
+
+Nickie was going along the main road, heading north, branching off to the
+farm-houses by the way to sell his cure-all. He sold one guileless
+housewife a bottle, assuring her that it would convert brass spoons into
+real silver. A little mercury in a rag helped this trifling deception. On
+the third day Nickie had to buy some gingernuts to make a fresh supply of
+the Healing Mixture, and bottles were running short. He saw fortune
+staring him in the face.
+
+It was about eleven, and Mr. Crips was trudging contentedly along, the
+road, swinging his bag and singing his tender lay, at peace with the
+world, and buoyed with great hopes, when a trap drove up and a voice out
+of the accompanying dust said:--
+
+"That's 'im. That's the bloke!" A man jumped down and advanced to Nickie,
+and laid hands on him.
+
+"You're that doctor bloke what's selling the Rheumatic Balm, ain't yeh?"
+he asked.
+
+Nickie said nothing. Retribution had overtaken him. He knew that. His
+fair dreams fell from him, he sighed deeply, and philosophically, as was
+his wont, abandoned himself to the inevitable.
+
+There were two young men in the trap. They hoisted Nickie to the seat
+behind, and drove on. No explanation was offered, and Mr Crips expected
+none. They would come, he imagined, along with the familiar penalties.
+One of the young men did remark, with cheerful enthusiasm: "You're in fer
+it all right, blokie," but Nickie the Kid only sighed.
+
+Crips recognised the farm-house they drove to as that of the farmer with
+rheumatism in the back, his first customer. One young man ran in with the
+news, and presently reappeared in company with a large, elderly,
+energetic man, who was crying, excitedly: "Where is he? Bring him to me!"
+
+This large man dashed at Nickie the Kid, and fell on him bodily. He was
+followed by the housewife who purchased the Rheumatic Balm, and she also
+fell upon Nickie, who put up a short prayer. But to the doctor's immense
+surprise he found presently that he was not being assaulted, but hugged,
+that it was not curses, but blessings the old couple were showering upon
+his head.
+
+"Lor love yeh, I'll never forget yeh fer this," cried the farmer.
+
+"Come inside an' have a bit to eat," exclaimed his wife.
+
+The pair literally dragged Nickie into the house and dumped him down at a
+loaded table. He was waited upon by a rather nice-looking girl of twenty.
+
+"This is him, Millie," said the farmer, with enthusiasm. "This is Dr.
+Crips what cured yer old dad. Gord bless you, sir."
+
+The girl shook Nickie by the hand, and smiled on him sweetly, and said
+she could never forget the man that cured her dear pa, and all Nickie's
+happiness and his great content came back to him like refreshing waters.
+Dr. Crips stood up straight, he shook hands enthusiastically with farmer
+Dickson.
+
+"So the Rheumatic Balm has set you up again?" he said, heartily.
+
+"Hasn't it, by gum! Look at this." The farmer capered about the room.
+"Every bit o' pain's gone. I'll buy every drop of that balm you've got.
+That's why I had you brought back. But sit down, and eat, man--eat!"
+
+They simply squandered hospitality on Nickie the Kid that night; they had
+neighbours in to see him; they had music, and Dr. Crips sang, and danced,
+and drank, and made love to Miss Dickson out under the elderberries. Out
+under the elderberries, for the edification of Millie Dickson, Nicholas
+Crips was a medical man of high attainments, but the victim of
+extraordinary vicissitudes. It was very touching, most romantic. Nickie
+lied with great splendour. He displayed no little aptitude in the
+character of Don Juan too. Miss Dickson thought him a perfect dear.
+
+Returning to the house for supper, Nickie and the ingenuous Millie
+loitered by the open kitchen window, and Nickie saw and heard things of
+no little interest to him professionally. Farmer Dickson and three
+neighbours were comparing bottles of Dr. Crip's Celebrated Healing
+Mixture.
+
+"Anyhow," said one, "I'll swear his nibs sold me this ez a cure fer pip
+in chickens."
+
+"And he told me this was a dead sure cure fer corns 'n' ingrowin'
+toe-nail," ejaculated another.
+
+"I bought this bottle fer me diabetes," explained Coleman. "He said it ud
+root out diabetes in nine hours."
+
+Farmer Dickson shook his bottle, and looked at it very dubiously. "It
+seems t' me it's all the same mixture," he said. "It looks like it,
+tastes like, 'n' it smells like. Now I come t' think iv it, I ain't too
+sure 'bout these blanky rheumatics o' mine." He reached down his back and
+rubbed himself anxiously.
+
+"I thought my diabetes was a-movin', but they're all back at me agin,"
+said Coleman.
+
+"The chicken died what I gave the mixture to," explained Anderson.
+
+Dickson scowled and felt himself, for as far as he could reach up and
+down his spine. "I'm pretty certain the rheumatics 're comin' back," he
+murmured. "Wow!" he gasped, as a bad twinge took him. "It is back!"
+
+"Tell yeh what," Anderson remarked plaintively, "we've been done."
+
+"He's a blanky fraud!"
+
+"A robber!"
+
+"Let's look him up, 'n' 'ave a word or two."
+
+The farmers seized their sticks. They moved towards the door, but already
+Nickie had begged to be excused, and passed into the night. The stillness
+and mystery of the bush enveloped him.
+
+Next day the neighbours compared notes and bottles, and found that the
+medicine for influenza, consumption, liver disease, indigestion and cold
+feet, the embrocation for rheumatism, sprains, corns, bruises and
+headaches, the cure for pigs, the wash for silvering spoons, and the
+hair-restorer were all the same mixture. Then a great popular demand for
+Dr. Crips set in at Tarra, but by this time Nickie the Kid was back in
+town, amazing his friends with his lavish hospitality in threepenny bars.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FAMILY MATTER.
+
+EVEN Nickie's intimates of the wharves and the river banks knew nothing
+of his ancestors or relations. Nickie was naturally reticent about his
+own business; On the point of family connections he was dumb. It was
+assumed that he had had a father and mother at some stage of his career,
+but the evolution of Nickie the Kid from a schoolboy, with shining
+morning face, to a homeless rapscallion, living on his impudence, was
+never dwelt upon by our hero, which is a great pity, as the process of
+degeneration must have been highly interesting.
+
+Certainly, Nickie did not regret his respectable past, if he were ever
+respectable, and it is equally certain that he had no craving for high
+things in the way of tall hats and two-storey houses. He appreciated the
+value of money, since it enabled him to gratify his tastes, but it must
+be admitted his tastes were scandalous in the main.
+
+However, at Banklands Nickie solicited work, laborious and painful work.
+Moreover, he went to the job of his own free will, when sober and in his
+right mind. This seemed to imply an awakening of conscience, a dawning
+sense of his utter uselessness to the body politic, and a desire to
+figure as a useful member of society. On the other hand, it may have been
+a symptom of brain-softening. But it happened to be neither; it was in
+fact a means to a wicked end. On the fading end of a superior suburb,
+where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned off and dwindled,
+and were lost among the gum trees of the original wilderness, Nickie
+found his billet.
+
+The suburb was coming ahead. The motor-car had made it easy and
+accessible to the rich. Splendid dwellings were going up all over the
+place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the
+stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.
+
+Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched the
+busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within
+himself.
+
+"Do these people expect to live a thousand years?" mused Mr. Crips, "that
+they build such solid houses? Or do they regard them as monuments? Look
+at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack under four boards!"
+
+Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake, with
+plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolous as those of a Chinese
+pagoda. It stood within capacious grounds, and proclaimed aloud the fact
+that its proprietor was a rich man, ostentatious of his riches.
+
+"I expect there's a matter of thirty rooms in that house," mused Nicholas
+Crips, "and after all, a man can get just as drunk in a threepenny bar."
+
+Nickie put in a couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well,
+but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate
+making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon induced
+him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound reflection
+lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man working on
+the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion, and seating
+himself on the broken metal, entered into conversation with the two-inch
+mason wielding the hammer.
+
+"Pretty hard work this," ventured Nicholas.
+
+"Blanky hard," assented the stonebreaker.
+
+"Did you ever try the softening influence of beer?" asked Nickie, drawing
+a bottle from his pocket.
+
+"Well, I won't make yeh force it on me," said the stonebreaker.
+
+They divided the liquor like brothers dear, and the stonebreaker
+developed a sudden affection for Nicholas Crips, who after twenty minutes
+casual conversation, introduced his plea.
+
+"Must be splendid exercise for the liver, stoneknapping," he said. "I've
+been troubled with liver complaint lately. Living too high. Could you
+give a man a job?"
+
+"Well," said the breaker, "I got a sorter contrac' t' break so many
+yards. If you'll do it at bob a yard you can get gain' on the other end
+iv th' 'eap."
+
+The price was far below current rates for cutting metal, but Nickie was
+not penurious and grasping. He threw off his tattered coat, and, draped
+in fragments of a shirt, in a pair of trousers, half of which fluttered
+in the breeze, and boots that looked like a collection of fragments, he
+set to work.
+
+Certainly Nicholas Crips did not show any disposition to work himself to
+death. After an hour his employer told him he wasn't likely to earn
+enough to keep a rag-gatherer in toilet soap, but Nickie explained again
+that he was merely exercising his liver, and had no intention of making
+an independence as a breaker of road metal.
+
+Nickie's heap was right opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the
+cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house
+from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping
+at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He was
+particularly interested in a tall, `severe-looking, fair-haired woman,
+who appeared on the balcony for a moment.
+
+Mr. Crips had been at work for about three hours, during which time he
+had perspired a good deal and gathered much dust, for Nickie was
+habitually easy going, and his task, although pursued with no diligence,
+had "taken it out of him" to some extent. He was certainly a deplorable
+scarecrow. A fine, polished carriage, with rubber tyres, drawn by a
+splendid pair of chestnuts, was driven down the side drove by a livened
+menial. It drew up near the centre gates, and Nickie leaned on his hammer
+and waited.
+
+The tall, dignified lady, accompanied by a short, important man in
+immaculate black, came along the path, and approached the open door of
+the vehicle. Nickie advanced carelessly, and intercepted them. He bowed
+grotesquely.
+
+"Good day, Billy," he said, familiarly. He lifted his hat pointedly to
+the lady. "'Ow's yerself Jinny?" he asked.
+
+The lady and gentleman stared at him in utmost astonishment for a moment,
+then consternation seized them, and they made a dive for the vehicle.
+Nickie followed to the door.
+
+"So long, if yer mus' be goin', Willyum," he said, pleasantly. "So long,
+Jinny. How's the old man's fish business?"
+
+"Drive on!" gasped the gentleman. He had the scared expression of one who
+had seen a spectre.
+
+The liveried menial whipped up, and the carriage was swept away. Nickie
+returned to his heap, and for fully two minutes Stub McGuire, his
+employer, gazed at him in speechless, open-mouthed amazement.
+
+"Well, of all the blarsted cheeks!" gasped McGuire, when speech came to
+him.
+
+"Don't mention it," said Nickie.
+
+"Don't mention it!" yelled Stub. "No, iv course not, but what price his
+nibs in the noble belltopper mentionin' it t' th' Johns, an' gettin' you
+seven days fer disgustin' behaviour?"
+
+Nickie smiled inscrutably, and continued his work. When the carriage
+returned, he made an adroit movement, and courteously opened the door.
+
+"'Low me, Jinny, my dear," he said, offering his grimy hand.
+
+The lady stepped down, and passed him disdainfully. The gentleman brushed
+him aside.
+
+"'Ope yeh 'ad er pleasant ride in yer cart, Billy?" said Nicholas.
+
+He followed them to the gate, and called through the bars.
+
+"Very sorry, Jinny, but I carn't haccept yer pressin' invitation ter
+dinner, havin' er previous engagement."
+
+He returned to his work again, smiling sweetly. He seemed to enjoy Stub
+McGuire's horror.
+
+"'Ere, 'ere," said McGuire, "off this job you go if you don't know better
+than to insult people that way. You'll be gettin' me inter mischiff."
+
+"Not at all," said Nickie, "not at all. Surely a man may offer ordinary
+civilities to his friends. Bless my soul, you wouldn't have me cut old
+Billy in the streets, would you? If I didn't speak to Jinny she'd think I
+was angry with her, and cry her eyes out. She has a tender heart, poor
+girl. She is a sensitive soul, and craves for social distinction. She
+looks to me to secure them a footing in exclusive circles, Mr. McGuire."
+
+"I don't know what y're talkin' about," Stub grumbled, "but that's enough
+of it, see?"
+
+Nickie took no notice of his employer's admonitions, however, and when a
+clergyman drove up in a buggy an hour later, our hero intercepted him at
+the gate.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "Would you mind tellin' Willyum inside
+there how Nickie sends him his compliments, and 'opes Jinny's quite
+well."
+
+"My good fellow, you must not be insolent," ejaculated the minister.
+
+"They won't take it as hinsolence," Nicholas explained. "They've er very
+touchin' regard fer me. Tell them. I arsked after 'em, won't yer?"
+
+Even Stub McGuire noticed that Nickie, whose speech was usually
+excellent, adopted the vulgar tongue in addressing the man he called
+Billy, or any of his friends or relations.
+
+Next day, Nickie inveigled three children, who were playing on the lawn,
+and entertained them at the gate with frivolous conversation for nearly
+ten minutes, when the state of affairs was discovered by their dignified
+mamma, who sent a maid flying to the rescue. Nickie took off his hat to
+the maid.
+
+"Tell Willyum," he said, "that bein' 'andy, I'll drop in ter lunch t'
+day, but Jinny's not on no account t' put up a big spread fer me. I'll
+jist take what's goin'."
+
+He finished these remarks at the top of his voice, the girl being
+half-way back to the house.
+
+When the important man in immaculate black came out a little later,
+Nickie saluted him gravely, as between gentlemen, but without deference.
+
+"'Ow's it, Billy?" he said. "You might drop in an' see me this evenin'.
+I'm livin' under th' blackberry hedge back o' your stables."
+
+The stout man passed in silence, and with a great show of dignity. Nickie
+had a busy afternoon. Evidently it was the dignified lady's "day." Quite
+a crowd of people drove up to the gates during the afternoon, and Nickie
+entrusted each with an affectionate and familiar message to Jinny. All
+were horrified at the insolence of the disgusting man, and one young
+fellow kicked Mr. Crips, but our' hero did not seem to mind. He merely
+warned his assailant that he would issue a County Court writ for any
+damages done to his trousers.
+
+On the following morning at about 11 o'clock Nickie entered the grounds,
+his rags fluttering in the breeze, marched to the door and rang the bell.
+To the Napoleonic man-servant who opened to him, he gravely presented a
+tomato can half-full of water, and said:
+
+"Will yer please arsk Bill or Jinny if they'll be so good as to bile my
+billy at the drorin'-room fire. Tell 'em it's Nicholas Crips what makes
+the request. No, thanks, I won't come in, I'm afraid my motor car might
+bolt."
+
+The Napoleonic man-servant threw Nickie off the verandah, and threw his
+billy after him, but this did not deter Nicholas from an attempt to enter
+into familiar conversation bearing on family matters, when he found the
+dignified lady in a summer house.
+
+The lady glared at him in stony horror. "How dare you?" she ejaculated.
+"How dare you?"
+
+"Why, what's wrong, Jinny, old girl." asked Crips innocently, assuming a
+lounging attitude in the doorway. "You find the togs I'm wearin' a trifle
+too negligee, so to speak. They're quite the thing in our set."
+
+"Let me pass!" ejaculated the lady with crushing hauteur.
+
+Nickie was not impressed. He smiled, and continued dreamily: "My word,
+things have moved with you, Jinny. You're gone up like er rocket in er
+reg'lar blaze iv glory, but I can still see yeh in the old shop days. You
+blazed then too, old girl. It wasn't with di'monds, 'twas fish scales,
+but you blazed. You could alwiz put on dog. You sold flathead, Jinny, but
+I give the devil his due--you did it like a duchess."
+
+At this point the Napoleonic footman intervened again. He took Nickie by
+his rags and the nape of his neck, and running him tip-toe out of the
+garden, tumbled him headlong on the grass-grown roadside. Nickie rejoined
+Stub McGuire quite unconcerned.
+
+"That's a new society game, my friend," he said. "The flunkey scored ten
+points."
+
+A few hours later the proprietor of the cement mansion came to his gate,
+and beckoned Nicholas Crips off the heap. Nickie the Kid responded with
+alacrity, and Stub McGuire gazed in cow-like wonder while the two
+discussed matters in the gateway.
+
+Nickie was calling him "Bill," "Billy," and "Willyum," indiscriminately.
+Stub nearly fainted when he saw the gentleman draw a bank-note from his
+pocket, and hand it to Nicholas Crips. Nickie lifted his deplorable hat,
+and said:
+
+"So long, Bill. I'm sorry I can't come an' stay a month. Some other time,
+perhaps."
+
+The gentleman went in, and slammed the gate behind him. Nickie returned
+to the heap, and picked up his coat and donned it.
+
+"I'm handing in my resignation, Mr. McGuire," he said. "You are welcome
+to my earnings, as I intend to live on my means--temporary at least." He
+held up the note.
+
+"A tenner!" gasped McGuire.
+
+"A tenner!" replied Nicholas, "presented by the kind gentleman on
+condition that I emigrate from this suburb and absent myself permanently.
+The worst thing about rich relations, Stub, is that they want whole
+suburbs to themselves; the best is that you can make them pay for the
+privilege of exclusiveness."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MASK BALL.
+
+NICKIE the Kid only observed his agreements and kept honourable promises
+so long as some material advantage flowed from his complaisance. Within a
+month he was again haunting the vicinity of the white mansion. One night
+he leaned against the fence and watched a procession of guests alighting
+from their vehicles. Splendid motors dashed up, and loads of
+gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen quaintly caparisoned were discharged
+at the great iron gates, and went trooping up the path to the flaring
+white residence, blazing like a crystal palace in a fairy tale.
+
+Nickie was not exactly envious, but looking through the iron railing at
+the gay array of lanterns in the vast garden, and the glowing mansion,
+and hearing the hubbub of cheerful voices and the laughter, he had a
+dawning sense that respectability, especially well-to-do respectability,
+had its compensations after all.
+
+He walked to the gate for a better view, and discovered a strange object
+lying on the path. It was a false nose, a large, red, boosy nose, with, a
+length of elastic to hold it in its place. One of the guests had dropped
+it. Nickie put it on in a waggish humour, and stood moralising as three
+pretty Spanish dancers, in charge of a toreador, passed in.
+
+Nickie loved gaiety, waster and rapscallion as he was--sunshine, colour,
+flowers, beautiful women, life, music and laughter shook passions loose
+within him. Another little kink in his brain might have made a poet of
+him, just as the smallest turn of chance might have made a deadbeat of
+almost any poet of parts.
+
+Mr. Crips actually sighed over that vision of fair women, and longed to
+be that happy toreador.
+
+   "Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
+   Before we, too, into the dust descend:
+   Dust unto dust, and under dust to lie,
+   Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End."
+
+The quotation had just escaped our hero lips when a young fellow garbed
+as Romeo, alighting from a hansom, dashed into him.
+
+"By Jove, that was dooced awkward of me--yes, I beg your pardon, I'm
+sure. Should have looked where I was going--what? said Romeo.
+
+"Not at all," answered Nickie politely. "My fault in blocking the path.
+My fault, entirely."
+
+"By Jo-o-ve!" gasped Romeo; "that's a stunnin' make-up, old chap--what?
+Nevah saw a bettah, by gad."
+
+"Make-up?" said Nicholas. Mr. Crips had for gotten his false nose.
+
+"Ya-as," said Romeo. "Your character, you know. A fellah 'd think you'd
+just come from sleeping in a rubbish bin. Yes. Best Weary Willie I've
+seen. But aren't you coming in, dear boy? You're a cart for Dolly's prize
+for best-sustained character, eh?"
+
+"Presently--presently." said Nicholas, smitten with a sudden idea.
+"Waiting for a friend, you know."
+
+Romeo went up the garden path, and Nickie the Kid retired under the
+shadow of the hedge to allow his thoughts to revolve. Romeo's words had
+suggested possibilities. Mr. Crips rarely wasted time making up his mind.
+Three minutes later he was sauntering jauntily up the garden path on the
+heels of a laughing Red Indian set.
+
+It was a fancy dress ball. All the guests were masked or otherwise
+disguised. Nickie had never encountered a softer thing. He determined to
+make a night of it at the expense of the host of "White-cliff." To avoid
+unpleasantness at the door, Nickie boldly climbed up the trellis of a
+vine, and entered the noisy crowded ballroom through an open window,
+rolling head over heels among the guests.
+
+His appearance provoked a shout of laughter. This was the proper way for
+a tramp to enter such a house. It was accepted as a quaint effort of
+humour. Weary Willie was applauded, and his appearance, when he rose to
+his feet, occasioned fresh merriment.
+
+The "make-up" of Mr. Crips was certainly very effective, but with the
+exception of the false nose it was nothing but his ordinary habit. He
+wore a pair of old grey trousers, lashed up with one brace, and belted
+with a strip of red material; between the fringed legs of this garment
+and his broken canvas shoes the tops of socks, one white, the other
+plaid, were plainly visible. The fact that they were only tops, and not
+whole socks, was not to be missed, as they had worked up, and an inch of
+bare ankle protruded. Nickie's coat was an old black Beaufort, from which
+two buttons' hung on grey threads, which was split half-way up the back,
+and from below the tails of which fluttered strips of torn lining. He
+wore no vest, and had on a woman's faded pink print blouse as a shirt. He
+had a linen collar that had long since lost all claims to whiteness and
+all pretence of dignity, and his hat was a small round boxer, with
+scarcely any rim. On one of the buttons of his Beaufort hung a strip of
+ordinary sugar bag, on which he had written with a stub of pencil the
+word "Program."
+
+Mr. Nicholas Crips looked the part to the life. He had not shaved for a
+week, and his lank hair was reaching out in all directions from under his
+ridiculous hat, and from various strands dangled fragments of his last
+couch under the boat shed. Nickie had nothing of the painted,
+unconvincing theatrical accessories of the usual fancy dress tramp; he
+looked real, and his success was instantaneous and complete.
+
+I have endeavoured to show that Mr. Crips was not a diffident man; he did
+not distress himself with scruples; fear of failure in an enterprise of
+this kind never worried him. He walked across the grand ball-room,
+swaggering in his rags, lifted his hat to a Watteau shepherdess who was
+laughing at him from a settee in a recess, and said:
+
+"Would yer darnce with er poor man, kind lydie?"
+
+Again the crowd laughed. A tall Mary Queen of Scots peered at Nickie
+through her lorgnette, and said.
+
+"How very whimsical!" The little shepherdess was a merry spirit, and
+bowed willingly. Nickie wrote "Milk Made" on his absurd programme, and
+the quaintly assorted pair joined in the waltz. How, where and when
+Nickie the Kid had learnt to dance Heaven knows, but he waltzed well, and
+after that he danced with Mary Stuart in a set.
+
+He was particularly attracted by Mary Stuart. She was a fine woman and
+the rakish Nicholas had a discriminating eye where the sex was concerned.
+Mary had a bold eye too, and a breezy manner. She took great joy in the
+tramp.
+
+A feature of Nickie's very humorous and original impersonation of the
+Yarra-banker was his waggish begging. When he had danced, before leaving
+his partner, he assumed a most lugubrious manner, and said:
+
+"Dear lydie, would you kindly assist a pore decayed gent, what's got a
+bedridden wife an' nine starvin' children, all twins? Just a copper,
+lydie. The bailiffs is in, lydie, an' if I don't take 'orne nine-pence
+for the rent they'll seize ther kerosene case, an' ther flour-sack, and
+ther rest iv ther drorin-room furniture, kind lydie."
+
+A gay vivandiere led Nickie to a portly Henry VIII. "Sire," she said,
+"this poor man claims king's bounty for his three sets of triplets. I
+humbly commend him to your majesty."
+
+"Just a trifle to assist a poor man, kind gent," whined Nickie the Kid.
+"Not a morsel iv turkey's passed me lips for seven days. Just a few
+pence, sir, to buy champagne fer me widders and orphans. I don't care
+about meself, kind sir."
+
+King Henry promptly dropped half-a-crown into Nickie's hat. Two, or three
+laughing guests standing about contributed silver. There was an
+impression in the ballroom that the sum of the quaint tramp's collection
+would go to a charity. None but Nickie himself knew the charitable object
+to which the money was to be devoted.
+
+Nickie danced with all sorts and conditions of women. Romeo slapped him
+on the back.
+
+"Splendid, deah boy!" he said. "We been thrown together, you know. Ran'
+into you at the gate--what? By gad, you're doin it well. But I say, who
+the devil are you?"
+
+"I'm Willie' the Waster, kind young gentleman, and I'm residin' under No.
+3 wharf, fifth plank from the corner. Would yer give er trifle towards me
+time-payment furniture, please, sir."
+
+Romeo contributed a shilling. "You're a sport," he said. "They're all on
+to you. Dolly herself's delighted. Yes, you're right as rain for the
+prize, but you might put me on--what?"
+
+"I'm feather-legged Ned, with ther consumptive corf," said Nickie. "Would
+you please give me a shillin' t' pay fer me medicine?"
+
+"No, dash me if I do!" said Romeo, and he went off laughing.
+
+Nickie took champagne with Sir Peter Teazie, Rip Van Winkle, Slender, and
+Henry VIII., and under the influence of the good wine became more
+audacious. He passed the hat with a characteristic complaint wherever a
+few guests were assembled, and in view of the vast amusement he was
+giving was allowed any license in reason. The offerings of the charitable
+he deposited in the tail pocket of his coat, and presently the weight
+dragged at him with a grateful pressure, and the silver clanked as he
+walked. Fortune was not actually staring him in the face, but it was
+hanging on behind.
+
+By one o'clock in the morning Nickie was carrying round a champagne
+bottle in his left hand, from which he refreshed himself, and he was no
+longer able to walk a chalk line as wide as a tram with an certainty, and
+had got into the way of clinging to the curtains and hangings; but this
+was all accepted as part of an excellent piece of caricature, and earned
+our hero some applause.
+
+Just before supper a lady, dressed as Portia, came forward, and pinned a
+neat design of gold laurel leaves and emeralds on the breast of Mr.
+Nicholas Crips. It was the prize for the best sustained character, which
+the host had offered his guests in a frivolous mood. Nickie bowed in
+acknowledgment of applause, and then, with the bottle in one hand, and
+his hat in the other, he appealed to Portia.
+
+"Could you spare a copper, kind lydie, to assist a poor orphan what's
+laid up with lumbago in the feet. I've bin bed-ridden fer ten years,
+lydie, and I lost both me legs in th' battle of Waterloo. On'y a penny
+for the battered 'ero good, kind lydie."
+
+At supper Nickie declined to unmask. He would not remove his preposterous
+false nose. He also excited doubts and misgivings by the depth of his
+thirst and his almost miraculous capacity for food. After supper he was
+simply impossible.
+
+Nicholas Crips in his sober moments was quiet and unpretentious in his
+rascalities, his temperament was naturally mild; but under the influence
+of strong drink he always developed tremendous belief in his own
+magnificence, strutted about and fondly fancied himself a king. He was
+wholly and completely drunk when he charged into the ballroom at two in
+the morning, brandishing a full bottle, and singing uproariously. He
+staggered into the middle of the dancers, whirling his magnum.
+
+"Room" he cried. "Room, there, for King Solomon in all his glory" He
+whirled his bottle again, and the dancers broke before him. A Sir Toby
+Belch got the thick end of the bottle in his natural fatness, and
+collapsed with a groan. "Remove the body!" ordered Nickie, magnificently.
+"D'ye hear me, there, minions? Remove these offensive remain from the
+royal presence."
+
+The guests had retreated against the walls, and Nickie held the floor.
+Nobody believed this to be an artistic effort to sustain the character.
+Weary Willie was as drunk as a lord. He tittered a wild Indian whoop, and
+sang the chorus of "at the Old Bull and Bush," beating time with a leg of
+turkey. Then he turned to the band.
+
+"Play 'God Shave King'." he said. "If yeh don' play 'Go' Shave King' I'll
+have ver heads off 'fore mornin'."
+
+King Henry interposed, he put a restraining hand on Nickie, and spoke
+soothingly to him and Nickie the Kid promptly knocked the poor monarch on
+the head. Then rude hands seized Nickie: he was rushed from the house; he
+was rushed down the path, and hurled into the street.
+
+When all the guests had left the white mansion at Banklands, and daylight
+was streaming in, a weary man-servant interviewed the master of
+"Whitecliff."
+
+"Please, sir," he said; "the--eh--gentleman who was thrown out last
+night."
+
+"Well, what of him?" asked the host, disgustedly.
+
+"He's sleeping in the garden, sir."
+
+The host went out. He found Nickie the Kid sleeping in the Pansy bed, and
+Nickie was pulled to his feet.
+
+"Nicholas!" he gasped.
+
+"That'sh me, Willie," answered Nicholas Crips.
+
+"You blackguard, you intrude into my house and insult my guests, and you
+promised when I gave you that last L10 never to interfere with me again."
+
+"Now Willie, Little Willie," said Nickie, "when did I ever keep my
+promises?"
+
+"Leave my grounds or I'll give you over to the police!"
+
+"Chertainly," said Nickie. "Chertainly, I'll leave the grounds. There's
+always room for me outside."
+
+He took the skirt off his coat, heavy with the contributions of the
+guests, in his hand, and strolled joyously through the gate.
+
+"Ta-ta," he said. "Good-bye, Billy, dear ole Billy, dear, old,
+fat-headed, bumptious Billy!"
+
+Feeling like a king, Nickie the Kid passed down the road, and the morning
+sun glittered on the emblem on his breast. He was still sustaining the
+character.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A TEMPORARY REFORMATION.
+
+NICKIE the Kid presented himself at the front door of a decorous villa in
+an intensely respectable suburb, with sad story. Mr. Crips did not
+address the lady as an unblushing mendicant, he spoke as a man of some
+refinement and keen sensibility, whose bitter complaint was literally
+dragged from him by adverse circumstances.
+
+The lady was touched--her eye moistened.
+
+"That is really very sad," she said. "Come right in, my poor man. You
+must tell your story to my James. James will know how to help you."
+
+Nickie followed the lady without the smallest compunction. She knocked
+quietly at the door of a room and admitted Nicholas to a small apartment
+fitted up like a study. At a table near the window a grave young man was
+seated with writing materials before him.
+
+"Well, mater" he said, "whom have we here? Another of your proteges?"
+
+"I want you to listen to this poor fellow, James," said the lady, "his
+story will touch you as it has touched me. My poor man, this is my son,
+the Rev. James Nippit."
+
+Nickie bowed with a grace that did not belong to his tramp's garments and
+his insanitary and unshaven state.
+
+"Thank God. I have met you, sir," he said, in the voice of a strong man
+whose sorrows have about broken his proud spirit, "if your heart is as
+gentle as that of this sweet lady."
+
+The lady withdrew, and the Rev. James Nippit, who had been eyeing Mr.
+Crips keenly, motioned hit to a chair.
+
+"Be seated," he said, "and tell me your story."
+
+"I am the only son of the Rev. Arthur Crips, of Bolton, Lancashire,
+England," said Nickie. "My father held a good living. He intended to make
+a doctor of me. He brought me up always with that intention, lavished
+much money on me, and from the time I was fourteen I understood I was to
+live the life of a gentleman. Before my education was completed my father
+died, and I found that he had been led into speculation and we were
+ruined. Not only ruined, but disgraced. The shock killed my mother. I
+came to Australia. Unwittingly, without a chance of saving myself, I sank
+and drifted till I found myself a mere tramp. For years I have been a
+tattered, unclean, despised outcast. Yesterday I heard you preach; I was
+outside under a window too despicable a creature to enter among you trim
+flock. Your sermon reminded me of what I was, showed me to myself, made
+the future horribly real to me. I was inspired to fight, to try and work
+myself out of the slough into which I have drifted, and I have come to
+you for help. I am here." Nickie the Kid opened his arms with a dramatic
+gesture--his face was very sad.
+
+"Liar!" said the young clergyman looking Nickie straight in the eye.
+"Liar!" he repeated.
+
+Nickie looked back into the eye of the clergyman. His face betrayed no
+amazement. For a moment it was grave, almost reproachful, and then it
+relaxed into a broad grin. The device had failed--there was no further
+occasion for subterfuge.
+
+"Well," Mr. Crips admitted, "I don't pretend to be a George Washington. I
+may have been betrayed into errors of detail."
+
+"It is as well you admit it," said the Rev. Nippit. "Because I did not
+preach yesterday."
+
+"Very remiss of you," said Mr. Crips.
+
+"And, furthermore, I remember you well. Two years ago I was on a charity
+committee that inquired into your case. You were then the son of a
+Queensland Judge, reduced to poverty by wild living, but anxious to
+return to respectable courses."
+
+Nickie grinned again, and took up his hat. "It is as you say." he said,
+"a truly delicious morning for a stroll. I think I'll go and watch the
+grass grow. Good-day, Mr. Nippit."
+
+The young clergyman arose and interposed between Nickie and the door.
+"You will stay where you are," he said. "Sit down."
+
+Nickie sat down. He placed his hat very carefully on the carpet, folded
+his arms, and crossed his legs. "You are very kind," he said. "May I ask
+if a compulsory lunch goes with this unwarrantable detention?"
+
+"That remains to be seen," replied James. "I am going to offer you your
+choice of two courses. You will either submit yourself to my deliberate
+intention of making a good, clean, respectable, industrious member of
+society of you, or you will walk out of this place into gaol."
+
+Nickie's mind was made up instantly, but he did not capitulate in too
+great a hurry; he talked of conditions, and asked for details of his
+expected regeneration. The Rev. Nippit explained his belief that all men
+had in them the elements of decency, order and religion. Those elements
+only needed proper opportunities for development. He purposed giving
+Nickie the opportunities. He needed a handy man about the house; Nickie
+was to have the job. He would be expected to bathe every day, to shave
+every day, and observe the decencies of the well-ordered home.
+
+"And you are prepared to believe you can reform me?" said Nickie the Kid.
+
+"I am not only prepared to believe it--I am determined to believe it,"
+said the young clergyman, thumping the table.
+
+Nickie smiled again. "I submit myself to the experiment" he said, "but
+promise nothing. I don't think you will succeed. Your intentions are
+good, but mine are not, and it takes two to make a bargain."
+
+Nickie entered his new duties at once. After lunch he took a shovel into
+the garden and toyed with the earth a while, and then he went to sleep
+under a tree. The Rev. Nippit awakened him and talked with him in a firm
+but kindly spirit on the virtues of honest dealings with one's employer,
+and the necessity of industry to keep the world wagging, Nickie'
+graciously admitted that it was all very true. But when set to clean out
+the fowl-house he sat on a stone and held converse with an educated
+cockatoo next door.
+
+That evening, clean-shaven, freshly-bathed, dressed in a cast-off suit of
+James Nippit's, whole if slightly rusty, and robbed of its clerical
+significance, Nickie the Kid attended a religions function with his
+reverend employer. Nickie was orderly, wakeful and fairly attentive. When
+the plate came round he put threepence in, but he took a shilling out. It
+was a useful trick, taught him by an expert in the art of rigging the
+thimble and the pea. Nickie, when he had fairly good clothes, often
+attended church merely to practise it. To-night the exploit was more an
+act of unseemly and impious levity than a crime.
+
+The Rev. Nippit had a theory which he believed would succeed with nine
+malefactors out of ten if exerted under fair conditions it was based on
+kindness, forebearance and the inculcation of excellent precepts.
+
+It is distressing to have to report that Nickie took few pains to
+encourage his preceptor. He was lazy, he sometimes forgot to shave, he
+often forgot to bath, he was not always temperate; but the Rev. James
+bore it all with unconquerable patience. If Nickie was lazy, he talked
+with him like a brother of the twin virtues, industry and thrift; if he
+were unwashed, he explained to him that cleanliness was next to
+godliness: if he seemed to, have gazed too, long upon the wine when it
+was red, or the beer when it foamed in the bowl, the clergyman pointed
+out the advantage of strict sobriety, and earnestly besought Nicholas
+Crips to strive for higher things and the true light.
+
+The Rev. James Nippit was not discouraged. He saw Nickie often clean,
+usually decently attired, generally fairly decent in his behaviour, and
+always respectful in his manner, and believed the seed of righteous was
+sprouting; but Nickie was living comfortably, he was being well fed and
+well bedded, and was careful not to over-exert himself in the pursuit of
+his duties; consequently, it was easy for him to maintain a certain show
+of decorum.
+
+After Nickie the Kid had been under the tutelage of the Rev. James for
+about three weeks, the latter was puzzled to find that Mr. Crips was far
+from penniless. Now Nickie was paid nothing his services, but every week
+a small sum, representing his wages, was paid into the Savings Bank, and
+the deposit was to be transferred to him when he gave proof of complete
+and perfect regeneration. When asked to account for a bottle of whisky
+found in his room, and for a burst of inebriety that represented a good
+deal in spot cash, Nickie quibbled. The quibble was obvious even to an
+innocent soul like James. James was hurt, but he persisted.
+
+Nickie was content to have the experiment continue, but he held out no
+great hopes. "You know," he said, "this is your scheme, not mine. You, as
+it were, forced me to submit. You said you'd reform me in spite of
+myself. Well, I am patient, and you are earnest, but we don't seem to
+make much progress."
+
+For seven weeks the Rev. James Nippit continued experimenting and never
+once lost faith.
+
+James Nippit's pet work was in connection with his reform movement, the
+Young Men's Mission, a design for upraising the youths of the larrikin
+and criminal classes. The Young Men's Mission had attracted some
+attention, people were found willing to contribute to the good work, and
+this fact gave rise to some imposition. Uncertified persons of bad
+character were found to be collecting for the fund and appropriating the
+money to their own use. This caused James much distress of mind.
+
+One Sunday afternoon when driving from his Sunday School the Rev. Nippit
+was hailed by a trusted friend, who said:
+
+"For the last ten minutes I have been listening to a man preaching on the
+sands down there. He represents himself as one of the leaders of the
+Young Men's Mission Movement, and I am confident he is an impostor. If he
+is, it is your duty to expose him."
+
+The Rev. James took up the task eagerly. Leaving the buggy in charge of a
+small boy, the two gentle men joined the crowd, and James soon recognised
+that the speaker was delivering something very like a sermon of his own,
+but seasoning it with a sort of quaint, insolent humour, that suited the
+tastes of his hearers admirably. The crowd laughed and applauded.
+
+"Brothers and sisters," said the speaker, "I have shown you that these
+young men must be divorced from the long-sleever, and rescued from the
+lures of the plump, peroxided barmaid, and the blandishments of Bung, the
+reprobate who runs the pub. I have shown you they must be turned from the
+joys of the 'pushes,' tobacco chewing, and stoushing in offensive
+Chinamen with bricks, and now I appeal to you for the means of doing
+things. Money is said to be the root of all evil, but it is also the
+means of much good. If we want to go to heaven, we must pay the tram
+fare. He who gives quickly gives twice, but it is better still to give
+twice and to give quickly."
+
+As he spoke he moved among the people, taking up a collection in his hat,
+and the people responded liberally. He returned to his little eminence,
+and the Rev. James Nippit forced his way through the crowd, and
+confronted him, flushed, furious, over flowing.
+
+"So," said James, "this is the reward of my kindness? This--"
+
+Nickie was silent for a moment--for the preacher was Nicholas Crips,
+garbed in an old suit of his master's--then he turned calmly and said:
+
+"This gentleman, brothers and sisters, is the Reverend James Nippit, the
+founder of our noble much desire to say a few words. I desire to say
+mission. He desires to say a few words."
+
+"Yes, my good people," cried James, "I do very that the Young Men's
+Mission is one of the finest and most worthy institutions in this city to
+and to express the abhorrence I feel for those villains who make use of
+the credit the Mission has won for their own infamous purposes." He went
+on to explain how the Mission was being robbed, and wound up dramatically
+with the words: "And this man, this man at my side, this man who has
+addressed you in the guise of a minister, is one of the most wicked and
+detestable of the impostors."
+
+But in consequence of his oratorical training, and his clergyman's
+inability to come quickly to a point the denunciation lost its effect,
+for Nickie was not at the speaker's side; he had gone. He had taken the
+Rev. James Nippit's buggy, and driven off, and he carried the collection
+with him.
+
+The buggy was safe in the carriage-house when the Rev. James returned
+home, but Nickie was seeking fields and pastors new.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE INCIDENT IN BIGGS'S BUILDINGS.
+
+THE tall, spare man in rusty, clerical raiment was going from room to
+room in one of the huge, city buildings where Business people, gregarious
+as sparrows, nest in hundreds.
+
+The tall, spare man was cleanly shaved, he wore a very white collar, his
+expression combined benignity with a certain ascetic calm. He carried two
+or three books in his left hand, pressed against his heart with a sort of
+caress, an affection very common with gentlemen of the cloth, for
+Nicholas Crips had a keen eye for character, and his various
+impersonations were fairly true to type, and of no mean dramatic quality.
+
+Nickie the Kid knocked gently at an office door, a peremptory voice
+called "Come in," and he opened the door very softly, entered, closed the
+door very gently behind him, placed his crippled belltopper (rim
+uppermost) on the small counter that walled visitors off from the severe
+gentleman dictating to a blonde typewriter and said, with clerical
+unction.
+
+"Good-day sir. Good-day my dear young lady."
+
+"D-afternoon!" replied the severe gentleman severely.
+
+"Sir. I am here on a mission of charity, if you don't mind. I am the Rev
+Andrew Rowbottom. I am collecting subscriptions for the widow and family
+of the late William John Elphinston, a worthy member of my congregation,
+and a most estimable bricklayers labourer, killed, as you may remember,
+in the execution of his duty on the 14th September last."
+
+"Bless my soil, I can't be bothered with these matters in business
+hours," said the gentleman, and is severity was something terrible, but
+it did not appal the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom.
+
+"I have here a subscription list," continued the intruder suavely. "You
+will find upon it the name of some of our most prominent business
+people."
+
+"I'm busy." said the severe gentleman.
+
+"Need I remind you, my very good sir, that the smallest contribution will
+be thankfully received?"
+
+"Be so good as to close the door after you."
+
+"Certainly, brother, all in good time. Shall we say half-a-crown?
+Half-a-crown is a nice sum. No? A shilling perhaps?"
+
+"I suppose I shall have to pay for the privilege of being left in peace
+to the pursuit of my affairs. Here!!" The severe man slapped a shilling
+on the counter.
+
+"Oh, thank you--thank you so much." said the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom
+effusively. "What name?"
+
+"Confound the name!" snapped the severe gentle man. "Good-day."
+
+"Oh, to be sure, to be sure--good--day," said the Rev. Andrew, and he
+smiled and bowed and slid I trough the half-open door.
+
+Nicholas Crips called at many offices. In a few instances the occupants
+evaded a levy. They were people who had no particular business in hand,
+and could spare the time to hear all the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom persuasive
+arguments and stubbornly resist each plea, but the majority of the men
+were glad to buy the eloquent clergyman off with a small contribution.
+Sometimes office boys were impertinent, and an occasional business man
+was insolent and talked of throwing the suppliant out of the window, but
+Mr. Rowbottom was always suave and conciliatory. He seemed to sympathise
+with the angry individual whose privacy he was forced to break in pursuit
+of a sacred duty.
+
+Nickie the Kid reached the fourth floor. It was very quiet, and most of
+the offices were deserted. He found a pale young typewriter, a slave of
+the machine, in a room rather larger than an alderman's coffin, and
+obtained threepence in coppers for the widow and family of the late
+lamented William John Elphinston. He passed along a dim passage, and came
+to one of the larger apartments fronting the main street. It was
+evidently one of a suite. On the door was a brass plate bearing the name.
+"Henry Berryman."
+
+The Rev. Andrew Rowbottom knocked on his door a meek, appealing summons.
+He received no reply. Confident that he had heard a movement in the room
+Andrew knocked again. Still on answer. The Rev Andrew Rowbottorn turned
+the knob, opened the door a foot or so, and thrust his benignant
+countenance into the room.
+
+The face when it first appeared to the occupant was lit with a smile,
+suffused with a tender benevolence, a moment later it was stark and
+white, drawn with horror, a horror that chilled the blood, and gripped at
+the heart with a hand of iron.
+
+What the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom saw was a tall, handsome,
+fashionably-dressed woman of about thirty-six resting with her back to an
+office table, the position was crouching, her fingers clung to the
+table's edge; her eyes, large, dark, and instinct with mortal terror,
+were fixed upon the stranger in the doorway. At her feet was the body of
+a man, a stout man of perhaps forty. The body lay on its right side, the
+face turned to the floor, and from somewhere in the breast flowed a red
+stream that massed in a dark, clammy pool upon the slate coloured
+linoleum.
+
+Nickie saw a faint, flutter of movement in the limbs of the man on the
+floor, and his eyes rose to the face of the woman again. Her dry tongue
+passed over her parched lips, she seemed to be making an effort to speak.
+On the table near her right hand was a knife.
+
+Nicholas Crips slipped into the room, the door closed softly behind him.
+He had recognised the woman. She was his Mary Stuart of the Mask Ball.
+The man on the floor he remembered in the guise of Henry VIII.
+
+For a terrible half-minute the two stared at each other over the dead
+man.
+
+"You killed him!" whispered Nickie.
+
+The woman tried to moisten her lips again, made an effort to speak, and
+her voice broke in her throat. She nodded dumbly.
+
+"My God!"
+
+"You-you-what are you going to do?" whispered the woman. "Why don't you
+call out?" There was a wild hope in her dilated eyes. "You don't! You
+don't!"
+
+Nickie shook his head. "I don't run for the police?" he said. "No, I am
+not on speaking terms with the police myself."
+
+"You won't seize me, you won't betray me--you, a clergyman!"
+
+"No." said Nicholas Crips.
+
+The woman moved forward, she laid hands upon him, she looked into his
+face.
+
+"He was a villain." she said. "He deserved it, but I am a murderess, and
+you won't--" Her hands gripped him, a new light shone in her eyes.
+
+"Why were you creeping in here?" she said. "You are a thief, That's
+it--you are a thief. Well, listen, there are five thousand pounds' worth
+of diamonds in a little leather bag in his breast pocket!" She pointed
+down at the body. "Five thousand pounds' worth," she said.
+
+"Five thousand!" he gasped. "Five thousand!"
+
+The woman's hand was on the door knob. She opened the door and slipped
+out. The lock clicked as she closed the door behind her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A DEPARTURE INTO ART.
+
+NICHOLAS CRIPS seated-himself on a warm stone, on a convenient boulder
+spread the contents of yesterday's "Age." The "Age" contents on this
+occasion was the lunch of Mr. Nicholas Grips. Nickie had been given the
+meal half-an-hour earlier by a kind soul in one of the suburbs, to whom
+he had pitifully presented his urgent need of sustenance of an inviting
+kind. Very adroitly Nickie the Kid had dwelt upon his necessities, while
+impressing the lady's with the eccentricities of a peculiarly capricious
+appetite.
+
+It was the day after the distressing incident in Biggs's Buildings. Mr.
+Crips was no longer dressed in his clerical garments; they were carefully
+stowed away in a niche in a riverside quarry where he had long kept his
+wardrobe. To-day Nickie was dressed in the rags of a simple mendicant.
+
+The strongly melodramatic adventure the previous day did not seem to
+distress Mr. Crips; he ate heartily, but had only reached his second
+course, which was represented by the chicken, when his attention was
+attracted by a very lean, very pale, hollow-eyed, sad stranger who had
+seated himself on a sloping tree nearer the river, and was eyeing the
+banquet hungrily.
+
+Nickie the Kid, was not selfish. When his own needs were fairly met he
+could be generous with anybody's property, even his own. He tapped the
+chicken's breastbone invitingly with his penknife, and addressed the
+stranger.
+
+"May I offer you a little lunch, sir?" he said urbanely, with quite the
+air of a generous host.
+
+The long, lean man shook his head in mute melancholy, but accepted the
+invitation as an offer of friendship, and approached nearer, seating
+himself on a rock facing Nickie's banquet.
+
+"No, thanks, boss," he said.
+
+"You'll forgive me," said Nickie, after wrenching a mouthful from the
+back of the pullet, "but you look famished."
+
+"I am," answered the stranger.
+
+"Well, help yourself. These garlic sausage sandwiches are superb. Try the
+beer."
+
+Nickie pushed his jam tin forward.
+
+The other shook his head very regretfully.
+
+"I mustn't," he said. "Fact is, my livin' depends on me not eatin', an'
+I've got a wife an' kiddies to support."
+
+Nickie paused with the bottle half-way to his mouth.
+
+"Your living depends on your not eating?" he ejaculated. "What, do you
+earn anything by starving, then? By Jove, that's a quaint idea."
+
+"I earn all I get by starvin'. My name's Cann--Matty Cann, but I'm known
+professionally as Bony-part. Ain't yeh seen me advertisements up the main
+street? I'm drawed on a big poster outside Professer Thunder's Museum iv
+Marvels, I'm the livin' skelington."
+
+"He isn't ruining himself with your upkeep," Nickie.
+
+"No." replied the Living Skeleton. "I'm allowanced off an' I've got t'
+eat on'y what he gives me--that's in our contrac'. If I eat more an put
+on flesh out I go. There's a clause in ther contrac' what sez I'm li'ble
+t' be fired if goes above seven stone seven. The previous livin'
+skelington got the run at Barnip fer breakin' out. He was the only
+original. I'm just a sort iv understudy."
+
+Nickie clicked his tongue sympathetically. "Well," he said, "you might
+pick a bone. That wouldn't be very fattening, and it might delude your
+stomach with the idea you were having something to eat."
+
+Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, took the wish-bone with a few shreds of
+chicken on it.
+
+"Thanks," he said, "it might be a comfort." He sucked the bone fondly.
+
+"You said that Professor Thunder's only original living skeelton broke
+out at Barnip. What happened to him?"
+
+"He went on the spree," said Matty Cann.
+
+"Drink?" queried Nickie.
+
+"No, food. He got at a bar spread in the Shire hall at Barnip, an' afore
+they missed him he ate enough fer ten Shire Councillors. He completely
+rooned that banquet. That was the third time he'd gone on th' spree, an'
+ther Perfesser 'ad warned him if it 'appened again he'd get the shoot."
+
+Nickie the Kid grinned.
+
+"It isn't a Profession that would suit me," he said. "I have an
+instinctive fondness for meals. I knew the travelling show' business was
+a hungry game but I never reckoned on starvation as a means of earning a
+livelihood."
+
+"Oh. 'tisn't all bad," said Bonypart eagerly. "There's th' Missin' Link,
+fer instance; he a glutton. Blime, th' food that Missin' Link gets makes
+me lose all patience, an' sometimes I'd like t' get right up from my
+chair, an' bite him. He's in the 'ospital just now, sufferin' from his
+over--feedin'. It's a judgment on him."
+
+"A monkey in the hospital!"
+
+"Well, he ain't exactly a monkey. He was a man done up something like one
+o' them hoorang-hoo-tangs. Yeh see, part o' Perfesser Thunder's show is
+called the Descent of Man. It contains ten different kinds of monkeys,
+from Spider, a little cove 'bout th' size iv a rat, up t' Ammonia, what's
+a big griller. Th' Missin' Link, he comes next; but as I was sayin' he's
+out iv it just now, bein' ill, an' Perfesser Thunder ud give ez much ez
+two quid er week fee a good, reliable Missin' Link what wouldn't over-eat
+hisself." The Living Skeleton was allowing an inquiring eye to roam over
+Nickie the Kid.
+
+"I was thinkin' yon was just bout th' build fer a Missin' Link," he said.
+
+"What, me?" cried Nickie.
+
+The Skeleton nodded, and Nickie was silent for a moment, lost in thought.
+It was very necessary that Nickie should sink his identity for a time.
+Here was a magnificent opportunity. "Has the Missing Link much to do?" he
+asked.
+
+"No," replied Matty Cann. "He's just gotter he careful not t' over-eat
+hisseif, as I was savin'. Yeh see, people what come in t' th' show gives
+him buns, an' lollies an' things, an' if he's a glutton he' bound t' be
+knocked out."
+
+"What else does he do?"
+
+"Oh, prowls round in the cage."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"An' scratches hisself."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' growls."
+
+"That seems easy."
+
+"Well, it all depends. If yer gifted that way it's easy enough, but real
+scratchin' an' natural growlin' takes a bit o' doin'."
+
+"How's this?" asked Nickie.
+
+He scratched himself in approved monkey style, hopped briskly over the
+stone, then sat up, and growled a deep, guttural growl.
+
+"That's it--that's it, t' th' life!" cried Bonypart in amazed admiration.
+"Why, you're er natural born artist, that's what you are. If I could
+growl an' scratch like that I'd be a Missin' Link t'-morrer. No more
+living skelingtons fer me."
+
+"Look here," said Nicholas Crips seriously, "how long does the Missing
+Link have to remain in the cage?"
+
+"The show opens et one in th' afternoon, close at five, opens again at
+seven, an' closes et arf-pas ten."
+
+"And has the Missing Link to be growling' and scratching all the time?"
+
+"No, not all the time. If there ain't any people in he kin lie in er
+corner on th' stror under his blanket an' sleep, an' sometimes he kin
+stay lyin' on the stror when there's on'y a few people in, so long ez he
+growls a bit, an' stretches hisself. There's a lot in stretchin' hisself
+proper."
+
+"Like this," said Nickie. He reached out one leg, clawed with his left
+hand, and yawned cavernously.
+
+"Th' very identical," said Bonypart admiringly. "You was meant t' be a
+Missin' Link. Y'iv got all th' natural gifts, an' with th' proper hide
+drawn on over yeh, an' yer face made up a bit, nobody ud ever think you
+was anythink else but a true African Missin' Link, born an' bred."
+
+"Are you quite sure the Missing Link has nothing else to do?" asked
+Nickie, cautiously.
+
+"Positive, Missin' Links is scarce; they has pretty much their own way.
+Hold on--he's gotter 'ang a bit by one hand from a bar what goes through
+his cage, an' pretent to be sleepin'."
+
+Nickie the Kid had a contemplative expression "Bless my soul," he said,
+"there are strange ways of earning a living, and I'm not sure that my way
+is the easiest after all."
+
+He drained the bottle.
+
+Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was established in a shop in Bourke
+Street, Melbourne. The shop window was curtained with large posters, one
+representing a tall man, very thin even for a skeleton, sitting at a
+table, tying knots in his limbs. The other pictured a strange, hairy
+monster, half human, half monkey, which was labelled "Darwin's Missing
+Link." On a kerosene case at the door stood Professor Thunder himself,
+appealing to the populace to pause and contemplate the "astonishin'
+marvellous pictorial representations," and assuring five small boys that
+these were "living, speaking likenesses" of the wonders within. "No
+deception, ladies and gents, no deception!" he cried.
+
+Professor Thunder was his own "spruicher;" his eloquence was remarkable,
+his voice had the carrying power of a steam whistle, and the penetrating
+qualities of a circular saw. He was a quaint product of the show
+business, having been born in a museum and bred in an atmosphere of cheap
+theatricals.
+
+"Step inside! Step inside! Step inside!" cried the Professor. "There you
+will behold our extraordinary educational collection of Nature's
+mysteries, known as 'The Descent of Man,' described by the nobility, the
+scientists, and the faculty as the most complete representation of man's
+descent from the apes ever presented to an intelligent audience. There
+you will behold Bonypart, the miraculous, the bone man who has mystified
+all the doctors and amazed millions. There you will behold Ephraim, the
+enlightened pig; Madame Marve, the unrivalled seer, and last, but not
+least, Mahdi, the Missing Link, pronounced by travellers, medical men,
+and Darwinian students to be the one and only authentic and reliable
+Missing Link discovered by mortal man. And the price is only sixpence.
+Step up! Step up!"
+
+The people stepped up, and saw the living skeleton, a thin, long,
+melancholy man sitting on a chair, in limp tights, showing his bony
+knees; the educated pig, that did astonishing things at the bidding of
+Madame Marve; and the Descent of Man, represented by several monkeys of
+varying sizes, a gorilla, and the awe-inspiring Missing Link.
+
+The cage of Mahdi, the Missing Link, was some what dark, and the terrible
+form of the mystery loomed in the dusk, heavy and formidable. He was as
+big as a man, somewhat lank, and covered with coarse hair the colour of
+cocoanut matting. This afternoon, when the early patrons entered, they
+found him hanging limply by one arm, like a great ungainly bat.
+
+"The Missing Link always reposes in this manner in his native wilds,"
+said Madame Marve, in the chaste tones she assumed when imparting
+valuable instruction "but he is otherwise very human in his tastes and
+habits."
+
+"Has 'e a vote, ma'am?" asked a facetious labourer.
+
+A stout lady prodded Mahdi with her umbrella, and he flopped on all fours
+on the floor of his cage, and sprang forward with a hoarse growl,
+reaching a great, hairy paw out of the cage.
+
+"Lor blime, missus, yer ortenter do that to another woman's 'usband,"
+said the facetious labourer.
+
+The people pressed about Mahdi's cage. They threw nuts at him, and
+offered him lollies and cakes, and the Missing Link went through many
+surprising contortions, and rolled about, and capered, and growled in a
+most realistic way, while Madame Marve gave a full and exciting account
+of his capture in the jungles of Central Africa by a party of hunters, of
+whom Professor Thunder was the leader and the conspicuous hero.
+
+"Mahdi was then very young," said Madame. "He has been reared with great
+tenderness, and is now probably the most valuable, and he is the rarest
+animal in the world. Professor Thunder has been offered thousands of
+pounds for Mahdi, but refuses to part with him, preferring to take the
+marvellous monkey-man through the world for the education and edification
+of his fellow-creatures."
+
+Mahdi swung on his bar again, flopped, and then ran up the back wall
+several times, after which he sat in a corner and scratched himself
+industriously, grinning at the people every now and then, or uttering a
+growl that gave the women delicious cold shivers.
+
+The attention of the patrons was next drawn to the educated pig, and
+presently the show-room was empty again for a minute or two. Madame Marve
+addressed Mahdi the Missing Link.
+
+"You must growl more, my boy," she said. "The people like the growling,
+it terrifies them, and they talk to their friends about it. You really
+must keep on growling. I don't care if you don't scratch quite so much,
+but you must growl."
+
+The Missing Link pushed his drab muzzle through the bars.
+
+"Keep on growling," he protested. "Excuse me, madame, but I'm damned if I
+do unless you give me more beer. I've got a throat like a hot-box."
+
+Old friend of Mr. Nicholas Crips would have recognised those crisp tones
+instantly. Nickie the Kid had found his vocation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+AN UNFORTUNATE MEETING.
+
+NICHOLAS CRIPS entered into formal agreement with Professor Thunder, sole
+organiser, director and owner of Thunder's Celebrated Museum of Marvels,
+to impersonate Mahdi, the Missing Link, at a salary of thirty-seven and
+sixpence a week and keep, Nickie undertaking to observe the Sabbath, to
+behave becomingly and in no circumstances to disclose his identity to
+persons outside the show.
+
+The clause entailing strict observance of the Sabbath was a wise one from
+the Professor's point of view, as a previous Missing Link had taken
+advantage of Sunday being an off-day to get unreasonably drunk, in which
+state he betrayed the confidence of his employer, and disclosed the most
+sacred secrets of the profession.
+
+Nickie was assured that the job would be a permanency if he proved
+himself a zealous, efficient Missing Link, and as he understood that even
+when on show Mahdi was expected to do little more than curl up on the
+straw in his cage and growl, he gratefully accepted. The contract was
+signed.
+
+So far Nicholas had discovered the new skin he was compelled to don to be
+the only serious disadvantage attached to his office. It was
+tight-fitting, coated with monkey-like hair, and covered him entirely,
+the face being disguised under an attached mask with a flat nose and
+patches of hair. The skin laced down the spine, but the laces were
+artfully hidden under the fur.
+
+At least Nickie was leading man of the small company. Ammonia (whose cage
+adjoined the more sumptuous one in which Nickie was exhibited, and whose
+open jealousy of Mahdi was a source of no little inconvenience to Nickie
+the Kid) was an item of considerable interest, but the Link was the
+culminating point of the monkey's progress the climax, so to speak, and
+he enjoyed great popularity and many nuts. Possibly the nuts were the
+true source of Ammonia's dislike.
+
+Nickie the Kid had been three days figuring as the star of Professor
+Thunder's Museum of Marvels, and was growing accustomed to his suit, and
+to the situation. The Professor himself was a born vagabond, and his
+wife, Madame Marve, the somewhat plump prophetess, who read fortunes, and
+was mistress of the educated pig, had the Gipsy instinct and took life
+easily. Nickie had a good deal in common with both, and they promised to
+be a happy family.
+
+In his proudest moments Professor Thunder was not likely to overestimate
+the intrinsic value of the Missing Link as he stood, for tucked away
+under the singlet that lay between him and his hairy simian cuticle was a
+store of treasure with the product of which Nicholas Crips dreamed of
+living a life of ease and luxury when certain matters had blown over and
+it was wise for him to resume his proper place in the animal creation.
+
+The murder in Briggs's Building had stirred up a tremendous sensation,
+but as yet no one had thought of associating either the Rev. Andrew
+Rowbottom or the tall, fashionably-dressed lady with the crime.
+
+The show was not yet open for the evening, and Mahdi, the Missing Link,
+was permitted the privilege of free speech, denial of which was one of
+the most painful disadvantages of his public career.
+
+"Well, how're yeh likin' th' grip, Nickie?" asked Matty Cann, otherwise
+Bonypart the living skeleton.
+
+"It is not exacting." said the Missing Link, dreamily, "but it has its
+drawbacks to a man accustomed to finding favour with the ladies."
+
+"Drawbacks," exclaimed Bonypart. "What price living skelingtons? You
+wouldn't believe it, but I'm considered rather a fine man in flesh. It
+almost breaks my poor wife's 'eart t' see me in such redooced
+circumstances. I tell yeh I never thought I'd come down t' this."
+
+Nickie peered at the living skeleton from his cage. "I believe being a
+missing link has its advantages." he said. "After all, a missing link
+does have time off, but a living skeleton has no relaxations."
+
+"Dry up, Mahdi, an' get on your perch," cried Madame Thunder, "The
+Professor's openin' up."
+
+The door was opened, and the Marvels heard Professor Thunder declaiming
+on the astonishing quality of his exhibits.
+
+"Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!" exclaimed the professor in his deep,
+steam-organ tones. "Roll up, and see Mahdi and Marve--Mahdi the Missing
+Link, the great man-monkey, captured in the gloom junge of Darkest
+Africa, the Connectin' link 'tween man an' the beasts; Marve, the Mystic,
+the prophetess, enchantess and Egyptian seer, who will read your future
+in your palm, exhibit her educated pig, and display the occult science of
+the Oriental wonder-workers!'
+
+"Here they come," said Madame, arranging her rich Egyptian costume, made
+by sewing a design of spangles on a curiously-patterned bed quilt.
+
+The Missing Link hooked himself to the crossbar with one hand, drew up
+his hairy legs, and remained suspended in a limp attitude, as two women,
+with frightened children clinging to their skirts, entered the show.
+
+Madame took charge of the audience, and lucidly explained the Darwinian
+theory, beginning with Spider, the tiny ape, and tracing the descent of
+man through Ammonia, the gorilla, to Mahdi the Missing Link, and Mahdi
+romped about the cage, growled and gibbered, poking his amazingly human
+face through the bars for fleeting moments.
+
+When not engaged telling fortunes, performing a few primitive illusions,
+or putting Ephraim, the Educated Hog, through his manoeuvres, Madame was
+anything the occasion required. The Professor had great faith in her. She
+had once carried the show through successfully when the Living Skeleton,
+the Missing Link, Ammonia the Gorilla, and Ephraim were all incapacitated
+through an influenza epidemic.
+
+They had a big evening, the holiday-makers flocked in so freely that
+Professor Thunder abandoned his position as "spruicher," or public
+speaker, and took charge of the interior, acting as explainer and
+interpreter, leaving his little daughter Letitia to take the sixpences at
+the door.
+
+The night was warm, and as the stream of patrons was incessant, Nickie
+the Kid found his duties most oppressive, and had serious thoughts of
+shedding his skin.
+
+Professor Thunder greatly excited the interest of the crowd by announcing
+that a sum of one pound and a silver medal valued at one guinea would be
+given to any person courageous enough to follow Madame Marve's example
+and enter the cage containing Mahdi, the Missing Link.
+
+Nickie was resentful, as this meant a most energetic demonstration of
+savagery on his part, following a fawning and submissive manner, while
+madame, wearing a large sombrero and a man's coat, moved about in the
+cage, cracking a whip.
+
+The people gathered before the cage gazed upon madame with stupid awe,
+while the strange monster capered, or prostrated himself in great
+humility at her bidding. When she had withdrawn, and after the Professor
+had made his prodigal offer, it was Mahdi's duty to stimulate
+ungovernable ferocity, in order to deter any too-venturesome spirits.
+Nickie did his best. He bounded madly round the cage, he tore at the
+straw, tooth and nail, he roared terribly, and snatched furiously at the
+people near the bars. The crowd retreated in terror; all save one woman,
+a grim-looking female with the indurated face of an old-established
+lodginghouse-keeper.
+
+This woman came forward, and jabbed at Mahdi the Missing Link with her
+umbrella. "Gerrout, yeh brute!" she said. Mahdi backed into shades
+carefully provided at the back of the cage, and the old woman reached her
+umbrella through the bars, and made a hit at him. Mahdi seemed to cower.
+
+"A prize of one pound and a silver medal to any person daring enough to
+enter the cage of Mahdi, the man-monkey!" repeated Professor Thunder,
+with great hardihood.
+
+"Wha's that?" gasped the woman.
+
+Professor Thunder repeated his intrepid words; aside he hissed "Bellow,
+damn you--bellow!"
+
+Nickie bellowed; he jumped with desperate energy, he clawed up the straw,
+but he remained in the shadow.
+
+"A pound!" cried the woman. "A pound jist fer goin' in with that ape?
+Done! I'm yer man."
+
+The Professor was thunderstruck, so also was Mahdi the Missing Link.
+Never since Thunder invested in his famous fake of the man-monkey had man
+or woman been found courageous enough to beard the monster in his den for
+a pound. Never had any been expected to. Professor Thunder stood
+non-plussed.
+
+Madame went to the back of the cage. "Howl!" she whispered. "Howl! Do you
+want to ruin us?"
+
+Mahdi howled, he growled ferociously, he made an attempt to savage
+Ammonia. His paroxysms were fearful to look upon, but the woman did not
+seem to mind in the least.
+
+"Open the door," she said.
+
+"Madame, are you quite resolved to take this terrible risk?" said
+Thunder, gravely, feeling keenly the approaching loss of a hard-earned
+pound.
+
+"Terrible pickles!" said the woman. "I've bin managin' men fer twenty
+years, an' I ain't goin' t be stopped be no monkey."
+
+"Very well, madam, the consequences be upon your own head." (Aside to
+Nickie) "Roar, curse you, roar!"
+
+The Missing Link crept to the back bars in an imploring attitude. "No,
+no; for the love of heaven! don't let her in!" he whispered to Madame
+Marve.
+
+Professor Thunder burst into one of his frenzied street orations to drown
+the voice of the Missing Link, and threw open the cage door. The crowd
+huddled hack, horrified. One girl screamed, but the heroine from the
+old-established lodging-house boldly entered the cage, swinging her gamp.
+
+It was expected that the strange monster from the dim, damp jungles of
+Darkest Africa would spring upon her, but he did nothing of the kind; he
+rushed to the back of his cage, and cowered down, burying his face in the
+straw.
+
+The heroine butted Mahdi the Missing Link with her gamp. He gave no sign.
+She kicked him. He bore it meekly, crouching lower. There was some
+tittering in the crowd.
+
+"Get up, you nasty brute!" said the woman, and prodded the horrid
+monster.
+
+Nickie didn't even growl. The woman kicked, she kicked with force. She
+booted the terrible brute round the cage. She seemed to glory in her
+triumph, and when Mahdi butted into a corner and refused to stir, she
+took him by one leg, and towed him twice round the cage, and the
+tittering the crowd swelled to yells of derisions and ribald laughter,
+while Professor Thunder pranced about and cursed furiously. To save his
+show from being ruined with ridicule, he rushed in, seized the woman, and
+bundled her from the cage.
+
+"I can't permit on to risk your life in this mad way," he blurted; "any
+moment he might round on you, and then they'd pinch me for manslaughter.
+Here is your pound, madam; go, and thank God you have been permitted to
+live through this fearful experience." He paid with the grand air of a
+hero of melodrama. His manner was so impressive it almost restored
+confidence, but Mahdi, the monster, remained crouched at the back of his
+cage, his face hidden in the straw, and nothing would induce him to come
+out till closing time.
+
+When the last patron was gone, and the doors were closed, Professor
+Thunder approached Nickie.
+
+"Well, my friend, you're a pretty cheap kind of baa-lamb for a Missin'
+Link, I must say," he said haughtily. "Why in the devil did you allow the
+woman to make such a holy show of you?"
+
+"What was a man to do?" answered Nickie.
+
+"A Missin' Link that knew his business would have scared her out of her
+rags. By Heavings, man, you are no artist--you will never be an artist."
+
+"You couldn't scare that woman with a den of lions and an old-time German
+dragon, Professor."
+
+"Bosh! Rot! My last Missin' Link would have had her in fits, sir."
+
+"Allow me to know, please."
+
+"What do you know about her in pertickler, fellow?"
+
+"Well, it's ten years now since I ran away from her, Professor, but I
+ought to know something about her. She's my first error of judgment.
+She's my wife!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE LINK GOES MISSING.
+
+THE Missing Link was recognised by patrons of Thunder's Museum of Marvels
+as no ordinary animal. The Professor's show being conducted in a small
+shop, and owing nothing of its popularity to expensive advertisments in
+the "Amusements" columns, received no recognition from the press,
+consequently fame on a large scale did not come to Professor Thunder.
+Nevertheless the Museum of Marvels enjoyed a reputation in humble
+circles, and here Mahdi was talked of, and accepted without a question,
+as an astonishing vindication of the Darwinian hypothesis about which the
+Professor discoursed so fluently in his three minutes' lecture before the
+cage. It had only taken Nicholas Crips two weeks to assert himself, and
+already he had introduced many novelties into the recognised "business"
+for Missing Links.
+
+Occasionally a too-inquisitive visitor with a taste for natural history
+became obtrusive and sought close investigation. It was part of Nickie's
+duty to fill such visitors with a proper respect for Missing Links, but
+ninety-nine out of every hundred accepted Mahdi in good faith. It is an
+axiom in the show business that the people who can't be deceived are so
+few that they are not worth considering.
+
+It was a hot day, life in the cage was very oppressive. Nickie the Kid
+was painfully thirsty. Probably no Missing Link since the day when man
+began to emerge from the monkey had ever been so sorely afflicted with
+the craving for alcoholic stimulants.
+
+Mahdi had a fixed allowance his beer supply was rigorously prescribed by
+Professor Thunder, and precisely measured by Madame Marve. It was this
+precision that prevented Nickie being quite content with an artistic
+career.
+
+He had had his first pint. The second pint was not due for two hours.
+Nicholas Crips was not satisfied he would survive the time. The place was
+stifling.
+
+"Yar-r, get to blazes!" snorted the Darwinian hypothesis, and hurled his
+water tin at Ammonia.
+
+Ephraim, the pig, grunted pitifully, and Matty Cann, the bone man,
+drowsed in his chair. Madame Marve was sleeping, too, and the ripple of a
+monotonous snore came from the Egyptian tent.
+
+There were no patrons, the town was still, prone under the great heat.
+Professor Thunder entered, mopping his brow, and the Missing Link pressed
+against the bars.
+
+"How is it for a drink?" he said. "You've got to be generous, Professor,
+or I resign. There you are, a drink, or my resignation--the loss of the
+most versatile Link in the profession."
+
+The Professor entered the Egyptian tent, and presently returned with a
+pint pannikin which he passed through to Mr. Crips. Nickie seized it
+greedily, raised it to his lips, and then changed his mind, and hurled it
+at Thunder with a furious imprecation.
+
+"Water!" snarled the Missing Link, "Water! You have the heart to insult a
+Christian thirst with water on a day like this, you blastiferous heathen!
+Let me out! I resign. Let me out of this monkey house."
+
+Professor Thunder laughed and returned to his post at the door, and the
+baffled Link pushed his face through the bars and poured a torrent of
+frantic objurgations in the direction of the street door.
+
+"Nickie, fer th' love iv 'Eaven let er man sleep," pleaded the Living
+Skeleton pitifully. "I was just a-dreamin' iv pickled pigs' feet an'
+fried taters--crisp, brown, fried taters. Oh, Lord!"
+
+"Be quiet!" snarled the Missing Link, "and do a perish here from thirst
+while that cow of a man swills his fill and makes a fortune out of my
+mortal agony? No, hanged if I do."
+
+The Missing Link howled again, and Madame Marve, that she might sleep
+peacefully, broke rules and regulations, and smuggled him another half
+pannikin of beer.
+
+"Lucky dog!" sighed the bone man. "If I was t' tear the place up they
+wouldn't give me half yard iv grilled steak an' er pint iv chips."
+
+After tea, Mahdi was very quiet on his straw. The Professor and Madame
+Marve were making their usual dinner of cold boiled leg of mutton, bread
+and beer, in the Egyptian tent. The other animals were sleeping.
+
+The Link was not sleeping, he was amusing him self in a quaint way at the
+back of his cage. He had a small lassoo made of cord, and was throwing it
+at an object near the wall at a distance of five feet.
+
+Every time Nickie failed he swore in a patient heart-broken way, but he
+persisted, and eventually success crowned his efforts. An exclamation of
+great joy burst from his lips.
+
+"No silly business there, Mahdi," cried Madame warningly from her tent.
+"The public will be here in half a tick."
+
+Mahdi dropped his string and curled in a knot, but presently he started
+cautiously hauling in his prize. A long hairy arm reached out and
+clutched it, and hastily hid the object in the straw. The treasure was a
+bottle three-parts full of brandy, Professor Thunder's extra special.
+
+The Missing Link's performances during the next hour were curious and
+perfunctory: the animal was not himself. If Missing Links were habitually
+intemperate one would be inclined to say this Missing Link had taken
+something too much. During a quiet quarter of an hour Mahdi got the key
+of his cage from the Professor's ordinary vest, which had been left
+hanging within his reach, opened the door, and going quietly along the
+wall behind the cages, reached the back door, opened it, and stepped into
+the night.
+
+Two minutes later a monstrous shape came out of the shadows of a
+right-of-way into the well-lighted City Street, a strange, misshapen
+animal, with a head half-human half-monkey, with a body like that of an
+ourang-outang and long, flapping feet. The brute was covered with short,
+tufted, reddish hair, and in its hand it carried a brandy bottle
+containing about half-a-cup of spirit.
+
+The first to confront Nicholas Crips, the Missing Link, was a woman. She
+did not attempt to escape, but stood right in his way, staring at him
+with eye frantic with terror. Fear had struck her motionless but not
+dumb; she shrieked in Mahdi's face again and again. Her screams echoed
+along the street.
+
+"Thash all ri', missus," said the Missing Link affably, "I don' know you,
+an' excuse me; I don' wanter hear you sing." He brushed her aside, and
+rolled drunkenly into a wine shop.
+
+In the wine shop a large mirror served as a door screen. Nickie saw his
+grizzly shape reflected in this, and after surveying it in stupid
+surprise for a few moments, smashed the glass with his bottle, and rolled
+out again.
+
+Amazed men assembled at the door, fell back in awe before the Missing
+Link, and Mahdi crossed the road, carrying the neck of the broken bottle,
+his quaint feet, like huge hands, flopping in the dust. Mahdi's make-up
+did Professor Thunder great credit--it was grotesquely inhuman. The shape
+of the costume demanded a stooping attitude and shambling gait. Only in a
+good light and at close quarters could the deception be seen.
+
+People came running from all directions. A cab horse backed in terror
+before the monster, reared, plunged furiously and bolted into a peanut
+stall.
+
+Nickie waddled on, blissfully unconscious of the sensation he was
+creating. He invaded a secondhand clothes shop.
+
+"Shemima, mother of der brophet!" gasped Moses Aaronstein, throwing out
+his palms in a gesture terror, and Moses bolted through a side door.
+
+The Missing Link appropriated a spangled skirt and trailed it after him
+down the street. The shouting crowd followed at a respectful distance. In
+a small eating-house the Link encountered two men eating fried steak and
+onions. They beheld him with indescribable emotion, glared for a moment
+and fled. A girl coming in with a tureen of stew dropped the lot on the
+floor, threw her apron over her head, and fainted amongst the broken
+crockery and scattered viands.
+
+For a moment the strange inebriate stood swaying over the prostrate girl,
+making a grave, drunken effort to grasp the situation, then the Italian
+proprietress came into the room humming a cheerful strain, and carrying a
+burden of fried sausages. She beheld the horror, uttered a piercing
+scream, and dashed up the narrow stairs. Nickie went up the stairs after
+her, anxious to explain. The horrified people pressing at the front door
+and the windows saw him pass out of sight. There was now a large, excited
+crowd in the street. All sorts of rumours were afloat. Already it was
+stated that the mighty gorilla had killed three men and eaten half a
+horse. Two policemen were busy beating back the crowd, and collecting
+evidence from excited onlookers who had seen nothing.
+
+At this stage, Professor Thunder dashed through the assemblage. The
+Professor was in an agitated frame of mind.
+
+"What is it?" he cried. "Has anyone seen a Missin' Link--a dark brown
+Missin' Link?"
+
+Ten persons explained at once.
+
+"He's in there now," cried a bewildered cabman, pointing to the
+eating-house. "He's ate er girl, an' he's out after the missus with a
+club."
+
+"'T went up them stairs," cried a trembling woman.
+
+Yells from the crowd in the road brought the people surging into the
+middle of the street. Mahdi had opened a front window, and stepped out on
+to the roof of the verandah. He was dancing clumsily on the corrugated
+iron, and gesticulating, with his long, shaggy hands. Nickie was
+declaring with the warmth of absolute conviction that he was a king, but
+the yelling of the crowd rendered his speech inaudible.
+
+"I'm a king!" cried the Missing Link. "Behold in me your rightful
+sovereign. Bow down t' ye ri'ful sovereign, ye base born!" He threw five
+fried sausages into the crowd.
+
+The crowd continued yelling, and Nickie broke into a vain-glorious song,
+and capered like an idiot brandishing a Vienna loaf.
+
+Professor Thunder beat on his forehead like the baffled villain in the
+play. "Ten thousand furies!" he howled, and dashed for the stairs.
+
+While the Missing Link was still capering, Professor Thunder appeared at
+the window. He climbed through. The crowd loudly applauded his courage.
+He descended upon Mahdi, he seized him. The crowd cheered vociferously.
+Professor Thunder kicked the Missing Link. He dragged him back to the
+window, and kicked him through. The crowd nearly went frantic in its
+appreciation of such heroism.
+
+Presently the Professor appeared on the stairs, dragging the hairy
+monster after him. He dragged it by the leg. It bumped cruelly on the
+steps. The Professor pulled the Missing Link to his feet, took him by his
+rudimentary tail and the scuff of his neck, and ran him out of the shop.
+He ran the grizzly monster up the street as a publican ejects the
+unwelcome drunk. The crowd followed, cheering still.
+
+It was an inspiriting sight. The Missing Link running on tip-toes, his
+eyes projecting, seemingly in imminent danger of falling on his nose, the
+Professor furious, two wild policemen with drawn clubs following after,
+ready to do or die should the terrible brute break loose again.
+
+The Professor ran Mahdi into the show, kicking him through the door. He
+kicked him into his cage, and ten seconds later was vociferating on his
+kerosene box again, strenuously inviting the crowd to roll up, roll up,
+roll up, and see the wonderful Missing Link, the only genuine man-monkey
+in captivity.
+
+The rush that followed was unprecedented in the history of Professor
+Thunder's Museum of Marvels. The people flocked in. Prices were put up to
+a shilling all round, but still the people flocked, and Letitia took
+nearly a bucketful of silver before public interest was exhausted.
+
+Meanwhile, Madame Marve stirred up Nickie in his cage, and made him grin
+and howl and caper for the edification of the crowd, whose souls his
+street escapades had filled with awe.
+
+Next day the papers contained an account of the excitement occasioned in
+the city by the escape of a huge monkey from Thunder's Museum of Marvels,
+and the Missing Link demanded an increase of salary and a double
+allowance of beer, and got both, in view of his increased importance as
+the greatest draw the show had ever known.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE MISSING LINK PERFORMS IN THE PROVINCES.
+
+AFTER taking to the show business, Nicholas Crips often complained of the
+vicissitudes of an artistic career and threatened on many occasions to
+resign his arduous role as the Missing Link, but despite his occasional
+eccentric departures from the manners and customs of Missing Links,
+Nickie had so far proved to be the most successful and profitable
+man-monkey ever associated with the Professor's show, and Thunder was
+determined not to lose him.
+
+A bottle of beer, a good meal, and a season of repose, usually overcame
+Nickie's reluctance to continue his splendid impersonation. Besides, the
+easy Bohemian life was taking hold of him, and the actor's morbid love of
+applause had already planted itself in his breast.
+
+Matty Cann, the bone man, was the most respectable and melancholy freak
+in the museum, but his melancholy was not native to him, it sprang from
+the cravings of appetite doomed to dissatisfaction--he had his brighter
+moments.
+
+"I ken put up with always bein' like er specimei iv er Indian famine," he
+said, confiding in Mahdi the Missing Link, through the bars of the latter
+cage, "knowing the missus and the kids has plenty. You noticed 'ow fat
+Jane was when she brought the fam'ly t' see the show the other day? Well,
+I give you my word, the wife was thin enough t' take on this billet
+'erself when the Perfesser engaged me."
+
+Nickie's sentimental side was quite stirred by the affection existing
+between Bonypart and his small family, and the anguish of Jane and the
+kiddies at parting with Matty when the show was on the eve of starting on
+a provincial tour so wrought upon him that he shed two large tears down
+his Simian cheeks, and handed a shilling to Mat, the fat baby.
+
+The show opened at Bunkers, a small Gippsland town. The Museum of Marvels
+was conveyed in a two-horse caravan, and was displayed in a small circus
+tent, Mahdi's cage, as usual, being thrown into shadow by an ingenious
+device of the Professor's.
+
+Professor Thunder was more at his ease in the bush towns. There patrons
+are neither so inquisitive nor so exacting as in the metropolis. The
+Museum of Marvels was opened to the public of Bunkers in the afternoon,
+admission sixpence, children half-price, special concessions to schools
+and other educational institutions.
+
+Nickie found his sphere of usefulness enlarged in the country, since he
+expected to assist in pitching the tent and striking it again, and had to
+do his share of the camp work, cooking, &c. The quick changes prevented
+outsiders from noticing that the absence of Nicholas Crips was always
+coincident--with the appearance of Mahdi, the Missing Link; but, still,
+nice judgment and caution had to be observed in effecting the
+transformation.
+
+Business at Bunkers was only moderate--for the first afternoon and
+evening, but Professor Thunder had so worked his "splendid living
+realisation of the Darwinian theory, the descent of man," as to induce
+the proprietress of a local young ladies' school to bring her pupils on
+the second afternoon.
+
+There were twenty-five young ladies in all, daughters of the superior
+families of Bunkers and the surrounding district. Miss Arnott, their
+teacher, was a tall, bony spinster, with austere glasses and sharp elbows
+that looked like weapons of defence.
+
+The Professor had several manners adapted for various audiences, and
+possessed costumes to Suit. He met Miss Arnott and her pupils in his
+splendid impersonation of the studious naturalist and reverent authority
+on the wonders of creation. A long black coat, a somewhat dingy
+belltopper, and a pair of smoked spectacles went with the part. So
+equipped, the boss conducted the seminary through his Museum of Marvels,
+educating and edifying the pupils, first with the astonishing
+mathematical calculations of Ephraim, the educated pig, then with Madame
+Marve's amazing acts of mysticism and legerdemain.
+
+The Living Skeleton was described as a unique freak of nature--"Teaching
+us all how wise and wonderlul are the workings of Providence," said the
+Professor, piously. "He is thin, ladies, but very--happy," he added.
+
+This was Bonypart's cue to work off a long, wan smile, and he smiled
+accordingly. The effort so worked on the feelings of one of the younger
+pupils that she burst into tears, and offered the bone man her piece of
+cake.
+
+Matty Cann looked eager, but the Professor smartly intervened.
+
+"Excuse me, young lady," he said suavely, "but visitors are requested not
+to feed the Living Skeleton. Living Skeletons are very delicately
+organised, madame," he continued, addressing the teacher. "A dry biscuit
+has been known to throw them into violent dyspepsia and they have died of
+a rump steak."
+
+Bonypart groaned audibly and recovering himself, made another effort to
+smile, but failed, and sighed hungrily, whereat the younger pupil broke
+into a dismal wail, and had to be taken out and soothed with lemonade.
+
+The fine collection of natural curiosities, illustrating the descent of
+man, was reserved for the last, and Professor Thunder proudly arrayed his
+company before the cages containing the tiny apes, the middling-sized
+gibbons, the baboon, Ammonia, the gorilla, and Mahdi, the man-monkey, or
+Missing Link.
+
+The young ladies were quite enthusiastic in their admiration. They fed
+the Missing Link with spongecake and nuts, which he took from their hands
+and ate with a certain genteel decorum. His manner of cracking the nuts
+was much appreciated. Nickie was a specialist at nut-cracking, having
+made a special study of the subject at the Zoo.
+
+Some of the girls said he was a "regular dear," and threw him flowers,
+and frosty Miss Arnott relaxed her elbows a trifle, and admitted that
+this quaint creature was indeed entertaining and instructive--most
+instructive. She had never met a more instructive creature. And meanwhile
+Ammonia the gorilla shook the dividing bars, and reached fierce claws
+towards Mahdi, convulsed with jealousy, and inspired with a primitive
+yearning for nuts.
+
+Professor Thunder spread himself in the delivery of his learned oration
+on the origin of the human race, beginning with Spider, and ranging up to
+the wondrous Missing Link. "Captured by my own hand in the jungles of
+Central Africa, ladies," said he, with fine dramatic elocution and the
+attitudes of a leading man.
+
+"You will observe that the creature is kept in semi-darkness, that is
+because he is accustomed to the thick shades of his native forests. He is
+very docile, excepting when attacked or irritated"--(descriptive growls
+from the Missing Link)--"when he displays extraordinary activity in
+pursuit of his foes"--(display of extraordinary activity by Madhi,
+swinging on the bar, racing round the cage, roaring, &c.). "He is very
+human in his appearance, as you will observe, and is much more upright in
+his carriage than the gorilla, while his mild and benevolent expression
+in repose"--(mild and benevolent expression artfully simulated by the
+Missing Link)--"gives his countenance a certain manly beauty and dignity.
+Looking at him thus, ladies, no one will deny that he stands for the
+missing link in the chain leading from the small ape up through the
+gorilla to the noblest work of God." The Professor finished chin up,
+heels together, eyes lifted, and the left hand thrust in the vest, a la
+Napoleon--to signify the highest effort of a benign Providence.
+
+Here Ammonia created a diversion by squealing angrily, spitting at the
+Missing Link, and clawing for him in a paroxysm of professional envy.
+
+"I think, ladies," continued Professor Thunder in his best manner, "that
+even those who discard the Darwinian hypothesis because of their
+objection to acknowledging relationship with the monkeys should have no
+reluctance to admit some distant connection with this noble and
+intelligent being, so like man in bearing and intellect, and yet so
+closely allied to the gorilla that we cannot deny--Blazes and fury!"
+
+The Professor's indecorous ejaculation was in spired by the mean,
+vicious, and unsportsmanlike conduct of Ammonia the gorilla, who had
+succeeded in gripping Mahdi by one leg, and was hanging on, squealing
+frightfully.
+
+"Pull him off! Pull him off!" yelled the Missing Link, forgetting
+everything in the moment of pain and, peril.
+
+Instantly the whole show was thrown into commotion. Miss Arnott screamed,
+her pupils screamed, the monkeys all rattled at their cages and jabbered
+excitedly; the Professor, the Living Skeleton, and Madame Marve added to
+the uproar.
+
+Ammonia, having his hated rival in his power at last, was determined to
+glut his hate. He secured a grip with the other iron talon, dragged
+Nickie down, and pulling him close to the bars, and pushing his short
+nose between the rods, bit at him with gleaming teeth, and all the time
+he clawed furiously, his nails tearing through the hide of the Missing
+Link, and lacerating the man beneath pitilessly.
+
+Nickie fought and yelled and swore, in good strong Australian. Miss
+Arnott's pupils, huddled together, staring with round, horrified eyes,
+and as they stared a truly horrible thing happened. The skin was torn
+clean from the upper part of the Missing Link, and the bare,
+blood-stained head and shoulders of a man emerged.
+
+That was too much for a well-conducted ladies seminary. With a final
+ear-piercing scream in chorus the school turned and fled; it broke
+pell-mell from the tent, headed by Miss Arnott, who executed a remarkable
+sprint, taking her age, her dignity and her lack of training into
+consideration.
+
+It was Madame Marve who rescued Nickie from the clutches of the gorilla,
+having subdued the brute with a discharge from a squirt charged with
+ammonia; but Professor Thunder was not thankful, he hadn't time, his
+magnificent mind was already busy on ways and means of repairing the
+mischief done to his Missing Link and to his reputation as an honourable
+showman.
+
+Of course, the revelation resulting from Ammonia's misconduct would go
+round the place like wildfire. There might be a raid of indignant
+residents, a prosecution for fraud, and there wasn't time to run.
+
+The raid came in due time. Ten heads of families accompanied by Quinn,
+the local constable, bore down upon the Museum of Marvels within an hour.
+Professor Thunder met them at the entrance, with his studious manner and
+his solemn black hat. The raid was going to express itself forcibly; it
+did refer to "iniquitous frauds," "shameful imposition," "scoundrels,"
+&c., but the Professor's big, penetrating voice, his heavy-as-lead
+manner, triumphed.
+
+"Most unfortunate, gentlemen, a most lamentable disaster," he said. "My
+valuable Missing Link is more seriously injured than I imagined, and I
+may lose him, which would be a heavy blow, indeed, as the College of
+Naturalists of London, values the beast at four thousand and seventy
+pounds."
+
+"It's a fraud--a blanky imposition!" cried a fierce little man.
+
+"Gentlemen will you favour me by stepping into the museum, and judging
+for yourself," said Thunder gravely. "You will find the Missing Link in a
+low state, but Madame Marve has done all that surgical skill could do.
+The murderous attacks of the gorilla scalped the poor creature, and tore
+the skin from his body, but the wounds have been stitched up--there is
+still hope. This way, gentle men, and quietly, if you please."
+
+The surprised and subdued deputation found Mahdi, the Missing Link, lying
+moaning on his straw, his wounds--artfully bloodstained--all stitched up.
+There were white bandages about his head and his injured arms.
+
+"But the girls say it was a man gasped the fierce deputationist.
+
+"A not unnatural mistake, my dear sir," said the Professor, "Strip the
+poor creature of its hairy hide and its resemblance to a human creature
+would deceive the most expert naturalist."
+
+"Wonderful!" said the local publican.
+
+"But all the same, me mahn," said Quinn, regretfully, "I have half a
+moind t' prosecute yeh fer croolty t' animals."
+
+The trick worked, however, the situation was saved, and that night all
+Bunkers flocked to see the Missing Link that had been flayed in its
+life-and-death struggle with an infuriated gorilla.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE STOLEN BABE.
+
+IN the larger townships and the small towns visit by the museum of
+Marvels on its provincial tour, Professor Thunder, gifted manager of this
+"colossal amusement enterprise," as the streamers eloquently phrased it,
+preferred to secure a shop in the main street to pitching his tent in
+some out-of-the-way place, where his persuasive powers might be wasted on
+the desert air.
+
+The Professor flattered himself there was not a more seductive
+"spruicher" in the business, and, mounted on a gin case at a shop front
+plentifully papered with screaming posters depicting the more popular
+attractions, he reckoned that he could always lure a given number of
+people into the show by the sheer force of his eloquence, and so make up
+the rent, provided there were men and women in the street willing to
+listen.
+
+Professor Thunder had found a vacant shop to suit him near the end of
+Main-street, Wangaroo. He would have preferred a central site at the same
+price, or even less, but none was available. However, business was so
+good on the first afternoon and evening that he resolved to extend his
+Wangaroo season into the following week. This involved a day of idleness,
+an unemployed Sunday, a boon that rarely came to the partakers in
+Professor Thunder's godless enterprises, the day of rest usually being
+given over to travel and arduous preparations for a Monday matinee.
+
+Nicholas Crips was well content with the change of dates. He certainly
+took a good deal of natural pride in his marked success as the most
+artistic and realistic representative of the missing link, and toyed in
+the reputation he was rapidly making for himself in the show business;
+but for all that, it was a great relief to throw off the hide of the
+celebrated man-monkey, drop the exactions of art, and be himself for a
+whole day.
+
+Nickie did not find, as many celebrated actors have done, that the work
+of sustaining a grand role day after day, night after night, week after
+week, and month after month, was too exacting; he bore the strain with
+consummate ease; moreover, the most conscientious artist wishes to be
+himself once now and again, if merely for a change.
+
+The shop in Wangaroo occupied by the Museum of Marvels was rented from a
+Chinese greengrocer, who carried on a business next door. The place had
+originally been one shop, but Kit See, with the frugality of his race,
+had partitioned it roughly, and with Oriental astuteness let the half for
+nearly as much as he paid for the whole.
+
+Kit See was a stout, cream Confucian with an oleaginous smile, and the
+gentle, propitiatory man of an inferior people, cunning enough to realise
+that if you cannot dominate it is wisest to be docile. He had a good
+stock, a good business, a half-caste wife, and a noiseless, placid,
+slit-eyed baby about the size of a Bologna sausage.
+
+The Missing Link discovered this much through a crack in the partition,
+and amused himself with his eyes glued to the slit when there were no
+professional demands on his time and talents.
+
+Most things that Mahdi did irritated Ammonia, whose jealousy and hatred
+were intensified by Nickie's habit, when in a playful humour, of teasing
+the gorilla by ostentatiously devouring delicacies Ammonia particularly
+affected in Ammonia's sight, almost within his reach.
+
+Nickie's interest in that hole in the wall was a course of consuming
+anxiety to Ammonia. While Mahdi had his eye to the wall, the gorilla
+would cling to the bars of his cage, pushing his blunt nose through, and
+gibber and spit and protest in a high-pitched, querulous growl.
+
+"Blime, yiv got the noble Ammonia goin' this trip, Nickie," said the
+Living Skeleton.
+
+"Yes," replied Nickie, still with his eye to the crack, "that beast will
+have to learn decency and good conduct, Matty, my man. I aspire to teach
+him moral restraint."
+
+"He'll do you a bad turn one o' them days, mark me."
+
+"I believe not," said the Missing Link. "I've got something here that
+will always reduce him to reason." Nickie touched his breast. "I say,
+Matthew, this Chow next door is a luxurious heathen. He's got all sorts
+of lovely preserved fruits in beautiful juices, and cakes, and ginger
+floating in its own gravy, and there is a bottle of Chinese brand under
+the counter. Now, Matthew, I think it is a sin to encourage the inferior
+races to indulge in intoxicants."
+
+"Don't," cried the Living Skeleton, a ring of anguish in his tones. "Yeh
+know, it's agin the rules t' talk t' me of things t' eat. It makes me
+fat." Poor Matty Cann groaned aloud. "Is there anythin' substantial?" he
+asked pitifully.
+
+"Not just now," said Nickie, "but last night I watched the Chow and his
+missus dining on roast duck. You notice there's a door in this partition
+just at the back of my cage. Curious, is it not? Well, I found an old
+rusty key in the crack under the wall, and it fits the lock of that door.
+Remarkable that, don't you think? Now, I shan't be surprised if some of
+those Chow delicacies find their way in here most unaccountably."
+
+"What's it t' me if they do?" sighed Matty. "I wouldn't dare t' eat 'em.
+If I did the boss would find I was puttin' on flesh, an' I'd be doin' a
+bunk."
+
+"But I suppose a drop of Chinese brandy wouldn't entirely spoil your
+figure, my boy."
+
+The Chinese delicacies did find their way into the cage of the Missing
+Link, quite a fine assortment of them, also the bottle of Celestial
+spirits. Ammonia witnessed the process of transference that night, and
+nearly went mad in his cage, springing about wildly, clinging to the
+bars, squealing and certainly blaspheming in his peculiar monkey
+gibberish, and Nicholas Crips sat in his cage, impishly eager to goad his
+enemy to fury, and ate luscious figs and fine preserves, while the
+gorilla strained at the intervening bars and shrilled his anguish.
+
+After this there were other casual visits to the shop of Kit See, and
+Ammonia's curiosity concerning the mysterious place from which the
+Missing Link drew such delectable supplies kept him at the back of his
+cage for hours together, peering at the wall, scratching it, and whining
+impotently.
+
+Evidently Kit See was troubled in his mind, too, for he came into the
+show to examine the door in the wall, and finding the cage of the Missing
+Link right up against it, and the formidable monster sleeping in the
+straw, was satisfied that the petty larcenist found access to his goods
+in some other way.
+
+On the Sunday, Nickie and the Living Skeleton walked abroad, seeing the
+sights of Wangaroo, including a waterfall; a hanging rock, and a
+cemetery, the latter the favourite resort of the elite and fashion of
+Wangaroo on Sundays. Mat's skeleton proportions were disguised in a long
+overcoat, and Nickie wore a loud theatrical suit, and a conspicuous
+clean-shave. He thought he looked like Henry Irving. He didn't see why he
+shouldn't.
+
+The company ate a late dinner in a room behind the show that evening.
+Amiable Madame Marve had prepared an excellent meal, in which the
+regulation beer and boiled leg of mutton course was relieved of monotony
+with vegetables and dumplings. There was soup before and pudding after,
+and in a burst of gratitude the Missing Link proposed the health of the
+Egyptian Mystic which was being drunk with enthusiasm in Chinese brandy,
+when suddenly a great racket arose in the yard, shouts and screams were
+heard from the street, and Kit See burst in upon the dinner party, his
+Celestial fade pale with terror, his usually benignant eyes round with
+apprehension.
+
+"What' for? Wha' far?" screamed the Chinaman at Professor Thunder. "Come!
+Come! You come dam quick! Monkey he stealem my baby."
+
+"Wha--at?" yelled the Professor.
+
+"The monkey cally baby away alonga house-top si'." Kit pointed to the
+ceiling. He was dancing with anguish.
+
+The Professor dashed for the caravan cage, and was back in a minute.
+"It's Ammonia," he cried, wild with excitement. "He's broke loose. He's
+got the Chinaman's baby on the roof."
+
+Kit See ran into the street, the Professor turned to follow, but Nickie
+seized him.
+
+"Hold hard," he said, "there's no hurry, no hurry in the world. Let us
+think this thing out."
+
+"No hurry!" snorted the Professor, "and that infernal gorilla waltzing
+round up there with a live baby?" The Professor's tragic manner would
+have been the making of a cheap melodrama.
+
+"Did you ever know Ammonia drop anything he'd once taken a good grip of?
+The youngster's safe for a while. It strike me we can make a hit out of
+this. How will it read in the Wangaroo 'Guardian': 'Child stolen by a
+gorilla. Rescue by Professor Thunder's famous Missing Link'?"
+
+Professor Thunder stopped with a gasp. "Holy Joseph!" he said, "that's a
+noble thought, my boy. Can it be done?"
+
+"You get out there and keep the crowd from overexerting itself. Leave the
+rest to me."
+
+Professor Thunder dashed out by the front door. There was already a large
+and vociferous crowd in the road, staring up at the gorilla,
+gesticulating and yelling, and people were coming running from all
+directions. On the side of the road stood Kit See, weeping, and
+brandishing his arms helplessly in the face of this grand calamity.
+Aloft, on the top of one of the chimneys, about three feet above the
+roof, sat the gorilla. In one of his hind claws he held the baby's
+clothing, and the youngster dangled, apparently disregarded by Ammonia,
+who, despite the terrors of the situation, cut a most ridiculous figure,
+for he was composedly sucking the milk from the baby's bottle, keeping
+his vindictive eyes on the crowd the while.
+
+"For God's sake keep quiet," thundered the Professor to the excited
+crowd. "Do not irritate him, and all will be well." He dragged to the
+ground a heroic Cousin Jack miner who was climbing the verandah post.
+"Back, man, back," he cried, "or all is lost."
+
+The Professor strode up and down with all a heavy villain's
+impressiveness and orated. His eloquence was drowned by a great
+hullabaloo at the next corner, and with a rattle and a yell four firemen
+came tearing down the road with a hose-reel. Some excited individual had,
+rung the fire-bell. The firemen attached the hose to a plug, and came on,
+hydrant in hand. It required all the Professor's energies, supplemented
+by the frenzied protestations of Kit See, to prevent them turning a full
+stream of water on the gorilla.
+
+The crowd was now a large one, gathered far out on the road, where a good
+view of the roof was obtainable, and when the excitement occasioned by
+the fire men had subsided, a fresh outburst was provoked by the
+appearance of another huge monkey, the great bulk of which came up slowly
+over the left ridge. The second monkey, which was much larger than the
+gorilla, sat upon the apex of the roof, jabbered at Ammonia, and the
+gorilla turned towards him, baring his teeth in a hideous grin of malice.
+
+"Keep still!" yelled Professor Thunder. "Keep quiet, for the love of
+heaven! Mahdi, the Missing Link, will save the che--e--ild! Mahdi, the
+animal that approaches nearest to man, captured by me in the dark jungles
+of Darkest Africa. Observe."
+
+The gorilla seemed animated with an implacable hatred for the larger
+monkey. The shades of night were falling, but the people in the street
+could divine this enmity from Ammonia's attitude and his gestures. His
+flat, ugly face was thrust towards the Missing Link. He grimaced
+horribly. With his eyes always on Mahdi, the gorilla slowly lowered the
+baby to the roof and let it go. The roof was shaped like an M, and the
+child rolled harmlessly into the gutter between the ridges. For a moment
+Ammonia faced the Missing Link, his venomous little eyes luminous as
+those of a cat, and then he ran along the ridge.
+
+A cry broke from the crowd, but when Ammonia was within couple of feet of
+the Missing Link he stopped as if shot, let go his hold, and rolled down
+the roof, and lay in the gutter beside the child, limp and inanimate.
+
+Mahdi clambered down the ridge, took up the baby, and, nursing it gently
+on one arm, came along the roof and down the sloping verandah, and
+lowered the son and heir of Kit See into Professor Thunder's arms amidst
+a storm of cheering such as had never been heard at Wangaroo.
+
+Nickie had predicted rightly. The Wangaroo "Guardian" next morning
+contained a thrilling account of the rescue, and in a leading article the
+editor pointed out that the humanitarian action of the Missing Link was
+proof that it approached nearer to the standard of man than any other
+known animal.
+
+The enthusiasm provoked by Mahdi's action brought a tremendous rush of
+business. In fact, the attention excited threatened to lead to an
+exposure of Professor Thunder's daring imposition. Leading men wanted to
+interview Mahdi; a section of the people of Wangaroo were even talking of
+having the Missing Link adorned with the Humane Society's medal, and
+another section prepared an illuminated address. Eventually the great
+showman left the town in something of a hurry to escape notoriety that
+promised to be dangerous, but he had done a record six-days' business,
+and was content.
+
+"But how'd yeh beat the blanky gorilla?" asked the Living Skeleton on the
+morning after the rescue, as the Missing Link sat in his cage munching
+preserved fruits presented to him in abundance by the grateful Kit See.
+
+"How do you think?" replied the intelligent animal. "With an ammonia
+squirt, of course. When he came at me I squirted a dose into him that
+nearly killed him. I'm never without that little weapon, and I think,
+Matthew really think that we shall teach the gorilla proper respect for
+the superior animals before we have done with him. His desire to supplant
+me in the scheme of evolution is contrary to science, my boy, and a
+defiance of natural law, and must not be countenanced for a moment."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE DEFEAT OF DAN HEELEY.
+
+AT Big Timber Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels had run for several
+consecutive hours to satisfactory business, and was now well on its way
+to The Mills, where a great day was expected in view of some local
+festivity that meant a general holiday for the mill hands, and a bush
+carousal.
+
+The caravan was drawn up for tea in the moonlit bush by Howlet's jinker
+track. A camp-fire blazed in the end of a butt under a wide-branching
+gum. The Professor lay at a distance--for the night was warm--smoking on
+the crisp grass. The Living Skeleton crouched near, embracing his lean
+knees, staring into the fire, thinking fondly of his absent wife and
+family, a furtive tear lurking in the hollow of his cheek, for Matty
+Cann's absurd sentimentality made him a failure as a vagabond. Nickie
+fussed about gallantly, assisting Madame Marve and little Miss Thunder,
+who were busy spreading papers for the evening meal.
+
+Professor Thunder had in Madame Marve a perfect wife for a showman. In
+addition to her value as the Egyptian Mystic, a wonder-worker, and teller
+of for tunes, she was chief cook and housekeeper for the whole caravan,
+but she had a flirtatious disposition, and the attentions Nicholas Crips
+offered in his unprofessional moments were received in a spirit of
+frivolous appreciation that disturbed the boss showman's complacency at
+times.
+
+"Less of it. Less of it, my boy!" was his deep throated exhortation on
+such occasions.
+
+All the members of the company had to take a hand in the hard graft and
+menial tasks incidental to the upkeep, management and movement of the
+show, and neither professional etiquette nor artistic pride could rescue
+Nicholas Crips from the vulgar task of preparing comestibles for the
+monkeys. But Madame was certainly the most useful artist on Professor
+Thunder's salary list, a document preserved with much pride, to be
+exhibited in bars and such public places for purposes of advertisement,
+and which represented the Egyptian Mystic as receiving L30 per week. On
+the salary list Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, was rated at L15 per week.
+He actually received twenty-shillings and his keep.
+
+"Professional usage, my boy--professional usage!" explained the
+celebrated entrepreneur when Matty Cann drew attention to the
+discrepancy. "It's always done in the theatrical business. Bless you, you
+don't think we pay our Sarah Bernhardts, and our Cinquevallis, and our
+Paderewskis and our Peggy Prydes those enormous salaries that get into
+the papers. No; no, we couldn't do it, but we are content to let it be
+thought we do. It impresses our public, Bonypart--it impresses our
+public, my boy."
+
+Madame Marve produced bread, butter, pannikins, and the familiar
+necessities, brought forward the usual boiled leg of mutton on a lordly
+dish, large, fat and steaming like a laundry.
+
+"Encore, encore!" cried the Professor.
+
+"Hear, hear!" applauded Nickie, clapping vigorously. Matty Cann even
+ventured an expression of appreciation.
+
+Madame Marve placed the mutton for the carver, and bowed low to the right
+and left, picked up an imaginary bouquet, and threw three kisses to
+hypothetical "gods."
+
+"Come, come, Bony," she said, patting the Living Skeleton on the back,
+"buck up, man. If my old man couldn't think of me for ten minutes without
+snivelling, I'd have a divorce."
+
+Matty Cann smiled wanly. He had no great cause to "buck up," his share of
+the boiled leg would be very small indeed and entirely knuckle, the
+Professor holding that the knuckle end was not fat-producing.
+
+"It's Jane's birthday this day week, an' little Mat'll be two year old
+the day after. I was wonderin' if I could get a day off t' visit me
+fam'ly?" said Matty.
+
+"And fat up over-eating yourself," said Thunder. "Not much, my boy!"
+
+Matty groaned. "I give you me word I'd eat nothin' but ship's biscuit,"
+he pleaded.
+
+"Poor old Bony," said the Egyptian Mystic. "It's a pity your missus ain't
+a bit of a freak, so as we could have her along. Now, if she could eat
+fire we might find a place for her. Fire-eaters are very popular. I
+suppose she couldn't learn to eat fire, Bony?"
+
+The Living Skeleton shook his head gloomily over his poor meal. "I'm
+afraid she couldn't," he said. "Jane ain't got any gifts."
+
+The meal was finished, and the utensils were washed and restored to the
+caravan cupboard, a zinc-lined packing case. Professor Thunder was down
+on his back on the crisp grass again, smoking. He was feeling good, and
+opened his heart.
+
+"We'll top off with a touch of old Jamaica, Nickie, my boy," he said.
+"There's a bottle in the box-seat. You might lead her out."
+
+Nickie needed no second invitation. He sprang up with unaccustomed
+alacrity, and passed out of the circle of light into the bush darkness.
+He found the bottle in the locker under the driving seat, and stepping
+down from the vehicle turned again towards the fire. The extraordinary
+change in the peaceful scene he had just left flashed upon him with the
+vividness of a tableau in melodrama The gifted members of Professor
+Thunder's world company were no longer lounging carelessly on the grass,
+they stood erect, grouped together, their faces, tense with fear and
+amazement, showing whitey-yellow in the firelight, their hands thrown
+above their heads. Facing them on the other side of the fire, with his
+profile to Nicholas Crips, was a short, stoutly-built man, in a coarse
+blue shirt and corduroy riding pants, with a white handkerchief tied
+loosely about his neck. A fine chestnut horse stood behind him. The rein
+was looped over his arm. In his right hand this man held a long,
+business-like Colt's revolver pointed at the group before him.
+
+It was a fine picture, intensely dramatic, it amazed Nickie, and brought
+him up short with a gasp, but it did not appeal to him as an artist
+particularly. He stepped sharply into cover of a gum butt. His hand went
+instinctively to his breast where, in a small chamois bag next his skin,
+he carried a certain treasure the care of which was the one real concern
+of his present life.
+
+"See here," said the gentleman with the long revolver, "the first of you,
+man, woman or child, that stirs a finger or utters a yelp gets lead
+poisonin'. Understand?" He looked round. "This is the whole band?" he
+said.
+
+Professor Thunder nodded his head.
+
+"Yes," said the intruder, "I was at your show at Big Timber, Professor,
+an' I took trouble t' size up the strength of the crowd. I guessed it
+would be an easy thing, and it is."
+
+"Who are you?" asked the celebrated entrepreneur, much distressed to find
+himself in a theatrical situation that was painfully real.
+
+"Don't ask questions of yer betters, Professor, an' you won't get hurt.
+Howsomever, yer bound t' hear at The Mills all about Dan Heeley, so I
+don't mind admittin' I'm little Danny."
+
+"Heeley!" gasped Madame Marve, "the man that shot Hollander, the man
+that's been sticking up the banks?"
+
+Heeley's brow darkened.
+
+"Precisely, missus," he said; "the man the Gov' mint offers L250 quid
+for, cash on delivery." He turned again to Professor Thunder. "I noticed
+you was doin' pretty good at Big Timber, mate," he said, "and I thought
+I'd follow on and pick up a little loose change. Fact is, I want your
+cash box, Perfessor, and any little articles of value you don't happen to
+be needin' for the moment."
+
+"I--I've got next to nothing," faltered Thunder. "Most of my takings went
+in expenses."
+
+Mat Heeley's revolver hand became rigid, his grim mouth, tightened, his
+chin set itself in prognathous ugliness.
+
+"You'll send your little girl for that cash box, Professor," he said
+coldly, "and you'll tell her to gather up any bits and pieces of
+jewellery and such like as would please me, and if the collection isn't a
+good one I'll maybe blow an arm off you, jist as a mark of my
+displeasure. As for the rest, if you ain't good I'll riddle the brain-pan
+of one of yeh jist to convince the others that I mean business."
+
+Professor Thunder was quite convinced; he had not the slightest doubt but
+that Daniel meant business. He gave Letitia his keys, and a few words of
+instruction, and the girl went to the caravan, and presently returned
+with the Professor's zinc cash box and a chamois-leather bag containing a
+few rings and chains belonging to himself and Madame.
+
+Dan Heeley placed his revolver to his hand on the stump by his side, and
+took up the cash box, but the next instant he snatched at his revolver
+again, and turned it upon a large, ungainly figure, that loped out of the
+bush, and stood grinning and chattering where the firelight faded into
+gloom. It was Mahdi the Missing Link, in full dress.
+
+"What's that?" demanded Heeley, fiercely.
+
+The figure leaped about in a foolish way, and rolled on the grass in
+unwield play. Heeley burst into laughter. "It's that blanky monkey," he
+said. "D'yeh mean t' say you leave four thousan' quids' worth o' monkey
+run round loose in the bush like this?"
+
+Mr. Heeley grinned amiably, replaced the revolver on the stump, and
+turned his attention to the cash box once more. That cash box was
+decidedly heavy, but the Professor, whose heart had been in his boots at
+the prospect of a big loss, was now tremulous with hope, and watched the
+Missing Link anxiously. Mahdi scraped and picked at the grass with a
+diverting show of monkey antics, sniffed at the boiler in which the leg
+of mutton had been cooked, and backed away nearer Heeley, with a yowl of
+consternation as his nose encountered the scalding water. Dan Heeley was
+diverted, he laughed aloud, but he had a cautious eye on his victims the
+while, for all he held them cheaply.
+
+Mahdi, the man-monkey, sniffed about the stump, and capered foolishly. He
+looked with ape-like curiosity at Heeley's horse, then made an impish
+jump at the animal, grinning and growling savagely. The horse threw up
+his head, snorted in terror, and pulled back, dragging Heeley with him,
+broke free, and bolted into the night. Cursing wildly, Heeley ran for his
+revolver. He ran with his nose on to the barrel of it.
+
+One was there before him--the Missing Link. The revolver was held in
+Mahdi's shaggy paw, pointed straight at Heeley's head, and the animal
+gibbered in guttural fury, snarling and showing ugly white fangs. It was
+a sight to deter the boldest; it shocked Dan Heeley, the Bold Dan Heeley,
+who had never trembled at the sight of a living thing--when he had the
+drop on it--and he drew up sharply and recoiled a step.
+
+Then he swore a big black oath, and his right hand went to his hip. It
+was an unwise action; the Missing Link anticipated the evil intention and
+fired. A second revolver fell from Mr. Heeley's right hand. Dan's
+shooting arm was broken.
+
+The Missing Link advanced with movements and howls significant of
+horrible ferocity. Dan Heeley backed before it, white to the lips. At
+this point the Professor plucked up courage and advanced upon Heeley.
+
+Dan offered no resistance, his arm was broken, and he was completely
+paralysed by the insistence of the monster attacking him. Five minutes
+later Dan, Heeley, the Bold Birragua Boy, was securely tied to a tree,
+with about three fathoms of inch manila, and the Professor's cash box,
+with its proper contents increased by certain sums that were illegally
+Heeley's, was safely bestowed in its locker again.
+
+"What was the price you said the Government had put on your head, Dan, my
+boy?" asked Professor Thunder. "Two hundred and fifty of the best? It's
+mine, Daniel."
+
+Heeley made no reply; his frightened eyes were fixed on the man-monkey
+cowering in the shade, with the revolver tight in its right hand.
+
+"The Missing Link will watch over you to-night, Dan," continued the
+Professor, jauntily. "He's as strong as ten men, so don't try tricks with
+him."
+
+But the Professor did not get that L250. At day-break, to Heeley's great
+amazement, the huge monkey cut him free, and made no attempt to resist
+his flight. Nicholas Crips had very satisfactory reasons for not being
+mixed up in a long, legal ceremonial such as the handing of Heeley over
+to the police would have entailed. Nicholas remembered a certain strange
+adventure in Bigg's Buildings, and his desire was to give the police of
+Victoria as wide a berth as the most exclusive officer could possibly
+long for.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A CURIOUS MISCHANCE AT BULLFROG.
+
+PROFESSOR THUNDER freely admitted that Nickie the Kid was by far the best
+Missing Link he had ever met.
+
+"There ain't your equal in the whole profession, my boy," he said,
+clapping the man-monkey heartily between the shoulder blades, "and if you
+go on improving your interpretation and developing the character, by the
+Lord Harry, I believe it'll be worth our while to do a world's tour one
+of these days."
+
+In consideration of Mahdi's perfections the Professor had twice
+generously raised his salary by half a-crown a week.
+
+"There isn't a Woolly Man o' the Woods or a Wild Man from Borneo now on
+the roads' drawing the salary you are, Crips," said the Professor. "Two
+pounds two and six a week is princely pay for a Missing Link. Let me tell
+you there are stars playing Romeo and Hamlet that aren't getting such
+good money, my boy."
+
+Nickie certainly deserved his munificent salary, as he was the best draw
+in the museum, and was improving the attractiveness of the show weekly,
+with bright ideas and new schemes for inciting the interest of the
+Professor's bucolic customers. It was Nickie suggested the idea of a ride
+through Bullfrog town ship in character.
+
+"I'm afraid, my boy," said the Professor, "it's risky--very risky. You'll
+be giving the game away one of them days, and once it gets about that
+Professor Sullivan Thunder's marvellous and only-living Missing Link is a
+fake, the metropolitan press will be down on me like a ton of bricks, and
+I'll come to running a Punch and Judy show at baby parties in my old
+age."
+
+"My dear Professor, have a bit of enterprise," replied the Missing Link,
+"we are not drawing well! Bullfrog wants waking up. Run out the caravan,
+and take a turn through the township, with the cornet playing and me
+riding ahead on the black mare, and we are bound to make an impression.
+Get through at a good bat, and they won't have time to look twice at the
+man-monkey before it's all over. Just a dash through and back to the
+tent, and we can be under cover again before they're fairly out of their
+houses. I tell you, sir, it will make Bull frog wild with curiosity."
+
+Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic, favoured the scheme, and Professor
+Thunder agreed. The caravan was prepared, and Madame Marve, wearing a
+much bespangled, but rather seedy, pantomime, fairy costume, stood by the
+box seat, playing a lively air on the cornet; Professor Thunder, with a
+flowing mane of hair and a Buffalo Bill rig-out, drove the horses. From
+the sides of the big vehicle hung highly-coloured posters, while above
+flared the name of the show in long, red letters.
+
+The black mare Nickie rode was one of the three hired to drag the Museum
+into Bullfrog. She was a rather spirited little beast, and had shown
+great perturbation when Mr. Crips, in his full make-up as Mahdi, the
+Missing Link, approached to mount. Now she cantered ahead at a smart
+pace, still nervous about the monstrous thing upon her back. The caravan
+came rattling after, Professor Thunder keeping up a volley of whip
+cracks, and Madame tooting gaily.
+
+It was early in the day, and the township had lain drowsing in its dust
+under the shimmer of a great yellow sun till this astonishing invasion
+struck it, and startled it from its accustomed lethargy. There was a rush
+to windows and doors, men fell over each other struggling from Harvey's
+bar, a sudden mutiny arose in the little wooden school, and children
+swarmed at the windows, and poured pell-mell from the doors. The people
+of Bullfrog caught only a fleeting glimpse of a huge monkey crouched
+man-wise on a gaily caparisoned pony, of Madame Marve in her fairy
+costume, and the gaudy caravan, as the small procession dashed past.
+
+But Constable Cobb, who was drowsing against the shoemaker's doorpost,
+saw the amazing thing on the horse approaching as in a dream, and
+professional zeal uppermost in his mind, he dashed into the toad, and
+grabbed at the rein. The mare, already much distressed, lost her head
+entirely at this rude intervention of the law, and rearing high on her
+hind legs as she beat the air with her hoofs, plunged wildly, and then
+bolted, leaving Constable Cobb on the broad of his back, half stifled in
+the dust, with the imprint of a horseshoe on his elegant helmet.
+
+The mare did the circuit of Bullfrog at a furious pace, with the Missing
+Link hanging about her neck, and slinging to her ribs with insistent
+heels. Never had Bullfrog experienced such a shaking up. People came
+running in all directions, eager to see this marvellous thing. The
+township was almost obscured in its own dust, and through the clouds of
+her own creating came the little mare, scattering the horrified
+inhabitants, who caught only fleeting glimpses of the huge, hairy
+creature sprawling in the saddle.
+
+When Nickie at length regained his stirrups, and worked himself into an
+upright position, he found the mare racing along a rough road between
+walls of bush, heading towards Tollbar, whence she had come on the
+previous day.
+
+Nickie the Kid was not expert as an equestrian. So far he had clung to
+the horse with desperate tenacity, and now that he had recovered his
+mental grip to some extent he could think of nothing to restrain the
+animal's wild career, but he did think of the awful possibilities of his
+position, one of which was an apparent certainty. The horse would carry
+him back to Tollbar, to its owner's stable, the township would be drawn
+together by the extraordinary spectacle of a horse bolting through the
+place mounted by a gigantic monkey, the fraud would be discovered, and
+then the inhabitants would deal in their own gentle, characteristic way
+with the man who had been party to Professor Thunder's shocking
+imposition. Two days earlier Tollbar had patronised the museum.
+
+These cheerful thoughts occupied Nickie's mind while the mare was
+negotiating about five miles, and wearing much of the wool off Mahdi, and
+not a little cuticle off Mr. Crips; but he was saved the dread ordeal he
+anticipated by another disaster. The mare caught a hoof in a rut and came
+down heavily, and presently Nickie recovered consciousness, lying on his
+back, blinking at the blue sky, gratified to find that he was not dead.
+
+The mare was out of sight, and the Missing Link was at large in the bush,
+with a damaged head, a sprained ankle, a cracked rib, and a pain in every
+limb. He arose and shook some, of the dust off himself, and then limped
+from the road and sat in the shade of a tree, with his back to the butt,
+to consider his lamentable situation and feel his injuries.
+
+Nickie's position was certainly an unpleasant one. He could not walk back
+to Bullfrog, because he would be certain to meet people by the way, and
+the sight of a Missing Link prowling in the Australian hush might lead to
+disaster. In any case, the sprained ankle made a five-mile walk
+impossible. Nickie could not strip off his monkey make-up, because of the
+very scanty undergarments he possessed.
+
+"What the deuce am I to do now?" groaned the victim, gently chafing his
+bruises.
+
+He was answered by a shrill scream, an energetic and most piercing
+feminine yell of terror, and lifting his startled eyes he beheld a young
+girl, clad after the manner of a settler's daughter, standing a few yards
+away, staring at him with wild horrified eyes. The girl's fingers were
+clutching her hair, her face was white, her limbs convulsed, she seemed
+glued to the spot, incapable of movement, but power of screaming remained
+with her, and she exerted it to the utmost--she screamed, and screamed,
+and screamed again, the bush resounded with the echoes of her agonised
+cries.
+
+For a moment Nickie stared back in blank surprise. It had not struck him
+that he was the occasion of this frantic demonstration, but presently he
+realised that a little screaming was excusable in an excitable young lady
+coming suddenly upon a full-grown missing link drowsing under the gums in
+her native bush.
+
+Nickie arose, he advanced a step. His intentions were honourable he meant
+to offer a full explanation, with apologies, but the girl did not wait;
+at his first movement she swung round and fled through the trees, still
+screaming.
+
+The Missing Link sat down again with a sigh. Anyhow there must be a
+residence near, he was not destined to perish in the bush; but the girl
+would rush home with a shocking tale of some hideous monster in the
+paddock, her male relations would come to hunt down that monster. Nickie
+had had experience of such hunters; he remembered that they carried guns,
+and that they were not disposed to delay shooting in order to argue with
+a monkey about the sacredness of life.
+
+Mr. Crips had a ready mind, and his peculiar career had taught him the
+necessity of prompt action. With eager hands he pulled off his monkey
+skin, rolled it up, and stuffed it into a hollow log, with the head-piece
+and mask; and then with his singlet he rubbed the make-up off his face,
+rubbing off a fair amount of hide in his eagerness. After this he set to
+work tearing up the grass tufts, and creating evidence of a struggle. The
+blood from a cut in his head came in most useful; he made as big a show
+as possible with it. Nicholas Crips next lay down amid the ruin he had
+wrought.
+
+Nickie had not long to wait. About twenty minutes later he saw an elderly
+man and a youth coming hurriedly through the trees, looking about them
+eagerly. Each carried a gun. He sat up and beckoned, and they hastened to
+him, not a little astonished to find a strange man clad only in torn
+singlet and drawers lying there in the depths of the bush.
+
+"Hullo, mate," said the elder man, "what's amiss?"
+
+Nickie groaned aloud. "Horrible!" he gasped. "Horrible! Horrible!"
+
+The man raised him. "I say, you've been knocked about," he said. "Have
+you seen anythin'?"
+
+Nickie nodded feebly. "Yes," he said, "a monkey, an orang-outang, or
+something, as big as a man. An awful brute."
+
+"Well, I'm blowed!" gaspe the man. "Then Nell was right. My daughter came
+home in a fit; she said a monkey bigger'n me had chased her."
+
+"It's true," murmured Nickie. "It chased me. We had a terrible fight. It
+tore all my clothes off about a mile and a half back there near the
+creek. I escaped, and it chased me here, and we fought again. I thought
+my end had come, when it must have heard you, and it made off through the
+bush towards the mountain, going like the wind."
+
+"By cripes!" ejaculated the youth in an awed voice.
+
+"Did he hurt yeh much?" asked the man.
+
+"My ankle's sprained, and I've got a broken rib and a cut head," answered
+Nickie; "but losing my clothes is the worst. What is a man to do without
+his clothes?"
+
+"You get up to the house, Billy, and bring down my Sunday things," said
+the settler. "We'll fix you up all right, mister," he added, addressing
+Nickie the Kid, and Nickie smiled warily, and uttered feeble thanks.
+
+They dressed Nickie and took him up to the house and fed him, and then
+drove him back to Bullfrog in their spring cart, delivering him into the
+hands of Madame Marve, who manifested great joy on receiving back the
+unparalleled Missing Link in fairly good condition.
+
+Nickie had explained to the settler that he believed the orang-outang
+that attacked him had escaped from Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels
+and that he intended claiming damages.
+
+Later in the day Nickie and the Professor drove out and recovered Mahdi's
+outfit from the hollow log, and that evening the Missing Link was again
+on view, and exciting much interest, although he sullenly refused to any
+further demonstration for the edification of the people of Bullfrog.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WIDOW AND THE LINK.
+
+THE Museum of Marvels was "resting" at Devil's Head. The Professor was
+resting, personally and particularly, on a stretcher bed in a small, hot,
+fly-infested room in "The Devil's Head" Hotel, pending the mending of
+divers injuries sustained in a disaster that put the show temporarily out
+of action. Thunder did not travel with his own horses, finding it much
+cheaper to hire a team to pull his caravan from one pitch to another. The
+pair of bays engaged to tow the museum, and traps and wares from Field
+Hill to Corner Stone had been so upset by the eccentric conduct of a
+frenzied inebriate, who fled along the stone road in a woman's
+nightdress, being pursued by purely imaginary griffins, dodoes, unicorns
+and dragons, all in primary colours, that they wheeled and bolted with
+the whole caboodle, and running into a bridge railing upset Professor
+Thunder and Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels into Billy's Creek,
+greatly to the detriment of the show, and to the serious discomfort of
+the Professor who was pulled from under Ammonia, the gorilla, just when
+that amusing animal had almost succeeded in stifling him in the slurry
+for which Billy's Creek was famous.
+
+While the Professor rested and underwent repairs, and whiled his time
+negotiating for damages with the owner of the horses and the frantic
+person in the woman's nightdress, Matty Cann, the' Living Skeleton, and
+Nicholas Crips, the Missing Link, were allowed their liberty. The Living
+Skeleton went home to the bosom of his affectionate family, with stern
+instructions to carefully regulate his diet, and Nickie went on to
+Winyip, sworn to preserve professional secrets, and bound to hold himself
+in readiness for resumption of duties at a day's notice.
+
+Nickie wore a good suit of store clothes, he bore on his rascally head
+quite a reputable hat, his linen was fairly meritorious, his boots were
+above reproach, he wore socks like a man accustomed to luxuries, he was
+clean-shaven, he jingled money in his pocket. In his varied career Nickie
+had had ups and downs; true, his "ups" had been brief, but they were
+frequent enough to keep him almost in touch with respectability. At
+Winyip, a considerable township in its way, he passed quite easily for a
+dramatic artist taking rest and change to dissipate brain fag, the result
+of too studious application to his art.
+
+When the Professor was himself again he called his company together and
+descended upon Corner Stone. The caravan remained at Corner Stone for a
+night and a day, and then moved on to Winyip. Nickie the Kid, for some
+reason of his own, strongly opposed the trip to Winyip; possibly because
+he was reluctant to appear as a mere man-monkey with a demoralised head
+and a rudimentary tail in a township in which he had recently figured to
+great advantage as Crips Nicholas, the eminent Shakespearean actor.
+
+Winyip proved to be an excellent show town and Mahdi, the Missing Link,
+came in for a good deal of attention, although his performance was more
+subdued than ordinarily, and he showed little of the actor's natural
+anxiety to monopolise the limelight, but a local moral reformer wrote to
+the "Winyip Advertiser and Porkkakeboorabool Standard" enlaring on the
+shocking action of a depraved showman in keeping this poor heathen, which
+was "almost a human creature," confined in a cage like a beast of the
+field. The disputation that followed was kept alive by Professor Thunder.
+
+People flocked to see the wonderful man-monkey, and on the afternoon of
+the second day came a tall, stern woman of about forty. She was nearly
+six feet high, her nose was large, her chin small and sliding, and she
+wore glasses. Across her left arm she nursed a large, shabby umbrella,
+and her habitual expression was that of one who has discovered a smell of
+drains.
+
+This big woman was very curious. She peered into every hole and corner,
+she examined Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, very closely through her
+glasses, looking critically at his features, and was equally curious with
+the monkeys. She even inspected Professor Thunder with such minuteness,
+and with such an air of one who has at last detected a shameful
+imposition, that at length the celebrated showman exclaimed with some
+grandeur: "Excuse me, ma'am, but I'm not an exhibit."
+
+"Oh," gasped the female, "I beg your pardon. My name is Martha Spink; I
+live at 'The Nook.' Do you happen to know a--eh--theatrical person named
+Nicholas--Crips Nicholas?"
+
+Professor Thunder had learned caution. "I fancy I have heard the name,"
+he said.
+
+"You haven't such a person in your employ?" said the lady.
+
+"No," said the Professor, thoughtfully, as if mentally running over the
+names of numerous celebrities on his long pay-roll. "No, I am sure there
+is no artist of that name in my company."
+
+"I'll find him," said Mrs. Spink, decisively, firing up, and making
+dangerous gestures with her umbrella. "Mark me, I'll find him, and when I
+do--" The sweep of her bulky gamp nearly knocked Bonypart off his
+platform.
+
+"Carefully, ma'am, carefully," said the Professor, "you came near
+breaking a valuable exhibit then. Living Skeletons have to be handled
+gingerly, madam. I am sure the ruffian deserves all you can give him. May
+I inquire what villain's work he is guilty of?"
+
+"He's been proposin' marriage, that's what he's been doin'," cried Mrs.
+Spink. "I'm a widder lady, and he's been proposin' marriage to Me."
+
+"Dangerous, dangerous--very dangerous," said the Professor.
+
+The Living Skeleton looked apprehensively to wards the cage of the
+Missing Link, and Mahdi growled fiercely and retreated into the shadows.
+
+"He stayed at my house two weeks," continued the widow, "paid nothing for
+board and residence, but made me an honourable proposal of marriage, and
+then ran off. But I'll find him."
+
+The Professor was called away to give his scholarly address on the
+Darwinian hypothesis for the edification of his patrons, and the fierce
+female hung on the outskirts of the audience, and examined the exhibits
+suspiciously. When Thunder came to that scale of creation represented by
+the Missing Link, Nickie exhibited great ferocity, growling and gnashing
+his teeth in a most terrifying manner, but keeping sedulously to the
+shadows at the back of the cage. Madame Marve stirred him up with the
+long stick kept for the purpose, and the Professor dwelt with feeling on
+the worst features of the animal's character. Mrs. Spink peered with
+especial eagerness.
+
+Mrs. Martha Spink paid twice for admission before sundown, and at night
+she came again. She betrayed extraordinary curiosity concerning the
+characteristics and peculiarities of missing links, and her concern had a
+powerful effect upon Mahdi. His diffidence was so marked that the
+Professor was constrained to excuse it in his descriptive address. "The
+poor animal is afflicted with toothache to-day," he said. "Like the best
+of us he has his morbid moments."
+
+"S'pose she'll be lookin' yeh up agen t'day, Nickie," whispered the
+Living Skeleton through Mahdi's bars next morning.
+
+The Missing Link snorted. "I wish the Professor would bet out of this
+hole," he said. "If that terrific creature discovers the truth, I am
+lost."
+
+Nickie had not left the cage all night, preferring to sleep in his skin
+rather than risk a sudden descent on the part of the enemy.
+
+"What'd yeh do it fer?" said the Skeleton; "a great lath-an'-plaster
+she-emu like that, too."
+
+"Not having anything else to do, Matthew," moaned the Missing Link. "I
+always was tender with women."
+
+"Well, yiv gotter look out, ol' man. If she nails yer, yer a gone link,
+that's er cert."
+
+"For two pins I'd retire from the profession," said Nickie. "It exposes a
+man to too much temptation."
+
+The lorn widow did not appear that morning. The afternoon passed, and
+Mrs. Spink had not been heard from. There was a good crowd in at
+half-past eight, and Professor Thunder was giving his instructive and
+entertaining description of the life and habits of the Missing Link in
+the dark jungles of Central Africa. The Link had recovered confidence
+somewhat. He ventured to show himself at the front of the cage, he
+capered and gibbered, and at that point where Thunder dwelt upon the
+courage and fierceness of the man-monkey in fighting for his young,
+Nickie jumped forward, clawing through the bars, and uttering
+blood-curling growls.
+
+At that moment his eye fell upon a face that thrust itself forward out of
+the press; his gaze encountered the eager scrutiny of a grim, green eye,
+behind glass. It was the eye of Widow Spink.
+
+"It's him," cried the widow. She rushed for ward; she battered at the
+Missing Link with her umbrella, and the terrified animal retreated to his
+straw. "You villain!" screamed Mrs. Spink, "you double-dyed, lyin'
+villain, I've got you!" She was reaching as far as possible through the
+bars, prodding at the man-monkey, and the audience were gazing in stupid
+surprise.
+
+"Madam, madam, my dear madam!" expostulated the Professor, "you must not
+irritate the animals."
+
+He pulled her back from the cage.
+
+"Don't tell me," cried the justly-indignant widow. "I know him I'd know
+him out of a thousand, robber of the widow and the orphan that he is."
+
+The Professor spoke to her soothingly.
+
+"There, there, madam, do not excite yourself, you'll be all right in the
+morning."
+
+"Meanin' I'm drunk!" shrieked the widow, raising her gingham
+threateningly. "I know what I'm talking about. He promised me marriage."
+
+She made another lunge at the Missing Link.
+
+"Yes, he did; he said we'd be married in a fortnight, the villain, and
+I'll have the law on him."
+
+"Most distressing hallucination," said the Professor, pressing Mrs. Spink
+through the crowd. "Will nobody take charge of the poor lady?"
+
+He pushed her towards the door, the crowd following, delighted with the
+unexpected diversion, confident that Mrs. Spink was drunk or mad. The
+widow retired, fighting, the people pressing her.
+
+"I'll have the law on him," screamed Mrs. Spink. "I'll have a thousand
+pounds damages for breach of promise. I'll teach him, deceivin' a lone
+widder, the villain!"
+
+Outside she enlarged upon her wrongs, telling the crowd of the infamous
+conduct of these actors, who go about the country imposing upon innocence
+and virtue. She went off, still flourishing her sturdy gamp, and
+reiterating her determination to have the law on the infamous Missing
+Link.
+
+"That widow means business, Crips, my boy," said the Professor after the
+show; "somethin's got to be done. She swears she'll see a lawyer, and she
+will. Now look here, I can't have my Missing Link dragged into a law
+suit. If you get sued for breach of promise, you're no good to me, the
+game's up so far as missing links are concerned, and my show's reputation
+gone. Is this to be the end of a long and honoured public career? What's
+to be done?"
+
+Madame Marve, Letitia, Matty Cann, Nickie, and even the educated pig sat
+in council to consider ways and means of averting the pending
+catastrophe, and Nickie bore the fierce rebukes showered upon him with
+proper humbleness. Never was seen a more depressed and humiliated missing
+link.
+
+The next day was Sunday and in the morning, dressed becomingly in his
+part as the naturalist and teacher, Professor Thunder called upon the
+Widow Spink at "The Nook," and held a long consultation with her. As a
+result of the Professor's arguments, the lady was persuaded to visit the
+Museum of Marvels and have a private audience with the Missing Link.
+
+The widow said she was going to town to see a lawyer on Monday morning,
+but agreed to Professor Thunder's proposal, and called on the Missing
+Link in his cage.
+
+"I think, madam, you will admit that you are mistaken," said the
+Professor, at the door of the cage, "and will see that you have cast a
+serious aspersion on the character of an innocent animal and the
+genuineness of a reputable museum." He stirred up the huge, hairy body
+lying in the straw in the Missing Link's cage. "If you come inside the
+creature may attack you, but you are welcome to do so."
+
+Mrs. Spink, after looking closer at the hideous head the Professor lifted
+out of the straw, and brought close to her own at the back bars, decided
+not to enter the cage. She had a painful impression that perhaps she was
+mistaken after all.
+
+"I admit, madam, that we build the animal up to some extent to make him
+look large. That is a mere showman's trick, and innocent enough in
+itself, but I am determined to convince you that this is a genuine
+man-monkey, as your story has done me much mischief in my profession.
+Pray look closely at the beast."
+
+Mrs. Spink did look closely. There was not the slightest doubt that the
+animal she beheld, although somewhat faked, was one of the monkey tribe.
+She confessed her error, she became contrite and tearful, and promised an
+apology if the Professor would not persist in his threatened action for
+defamation of character.
+
+"I was told the wretch was seen with your company," said the tearful Mrs.
+Spink.
+
+When the widow was well out of range, Nickie crept from the tent of the
+Egyptian Mystic, and breathed a great sigh of relief.
+
+"I shall probably never make love to a widow again," he said, sadly;
+"they are so ungrateful."
+
+He was dressed in his ordinary clothes, and the creature in the Missing
+Link's cage sprang towards him spitting and clawing spitefully. It was
+Ammonia, the Gorilla, in the Missing Link's skin, padded and faked to
+twice his size to deceive a poor, weak woman.
+
+"I believe after all we ought to frighten something in the way of
+compensation out of the gorgon," said Nickie, vengefully. Our reprobate
+hero was a man who knew no remorse of conscience.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MARDI HAS A NIGHT OFF.
+
+PROFESSOR THUNDER was hurt in his professional pride by the signal
+failure of his Museum of Marvels in Rabbit township. In the first place,
+the great impresario had been guilty of a grievous blunder in selecting
+Rabbit for a two-night's pitch, but things had been going so remarkably
+well of late, due mainly to the eccentric adventures of the Missing Link,
+that the boss was getting proud, and was beginning to feel that his
+astounding galaxy of unparalleled attractions would draw well in the dead
+centre of the Old Man Plain. Rabbit township was making his error plain
+to him.
+
+Usually when the caravan bounded into a township, with the little bells
+on the horses jingling gaily, and Madame Marve, dressed in a somewhat
+brief and too youthful costume, enthroned on the box seat, playing a
+rattling tune on the cornet, the people turned out in crowds to welcome
+it, and the children swarmed, eager for a peep at the hidden mysteries.
+
+It was different at Rabbit township.
+
+The caravan dashed into Rabbit with the customary velocity and the
+regulation rattle, but Rabbit did not trouble itself.
+
+"Blarst my eyes!" growled the Professor, when the camp was made; "even
+the dogs didn't bark! What sort of a boneyard is this we've struck?"
+
+As a matter of fact, Rabbit was a moribund township. The rabbits had
+eaten up the surrounding country, and now they were beginning to eat up
+the township. So voracious was bunny that when a man went missing it was
+gloomily concluded that the rabbits had eaten him, and the township took
+no action, subsiding in despair. Most of the people had left. Those who
+remained did so because they couldn't afford to shift, or because they
+were too lazy to go.
+
+Professor Thunder had been doing good business, and his expenses were
+light. He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in
+trying to amuse Rabbit township. Rabbit was incapable of being amused.
+
+There remained an open hotel at Rabbit, and the Professor called on its
+proprietor to gather useful information concerning the inhabitants, their
+tastes and habits. He found Schmitz, the portly proprietor, sprawling on
+his own bar counter, embracing a bottle of squareface with a loving hug.
+The two arms of Schmitz caressed the bottle, his cheek was pressed
+amorously to the cork. The eye of Schmitz was small and round, and seemed
+to be filled with pink cobweb, his hair was in a state of tumult, and was
+full of chips, suggesting that he had recently slept on the wood heap.
+Schmitz had a fierce, red moustache, that looked as if it had been
+trimmed on a block with an adze.
+
+The publican blinked stupidly at the world-famous showman for a moment,
+trying to pick him out from a number of unnatural curiosities careering
+before him, and then he said, decisively: "Ged oud of mein 'ous'."
+
+"My dear fellow," said the Professor, urbanely, "I suppose you will serve
+me with some little refreshment?"
+
+"Refreshmend?" muttered the landlord. "Refreshmend?" His intellect
+struggled to grasp the situation. Suddenly it became luminous. "Nein!" he
+yelled. "I vill nod you mid refreshmend serve! Nein! I keep him all for
+meinseluf. Ged oud!"
+
+"But, Mr. Schmitz," expostulated the Professor.
+
+"Ged oud of mein 'ous'. I know vot you want, ain't id? You want to buy
+mein liquer. Veil, I don'd sell some liquer to nopody. Der ain't
+sufficiency for mieinseluf. Ged oud! Tam you, ged oud kvick!" Schmitz
+caught up a bottle in quick rage, and dashed it at Professor Thunder.
+
+The Professor pursued his investigations no further. The tent was
+pitched, the museum was arranged for an afternoon performance, and the
+unrivalled showman, to whose enterprise Rabbit owed this chance of
+improving its mind and enlivening its leisure, took his stand outside,
+and endeavoured to awaken the township to a sense of its opportunities.
+For three-quarters of an hour he poured forth a stream of eloquence at
+the top of his pitch. After the first quarter of an hour he was
+appreciated by a tired dog, which drifted up, and barked at him in a
+desultory way. Later, he was becoming discouraged when a tattered youth,
+wearing a hat that nearly engulfed him, came and stared at him
+open-mouthed, stupidly, silently, for twenty minutes. This youth was the
+township idiot. Nobody else troubled to come out and see what all the
+noise was about.
+
+"We're got to shake up the township, Nickie," Thunder said.
+
+"Well, go out and shake it, Professor--I'm tired."
+
+"No, Nickie, you've got to do the shaking. See here, the place is dead. I
+don't believe it ever heard of Professor Thunder and his world-famous
+Missing Link; I don't think it has discovered that anything unusual has
+happened along. You must escape from your cage to-night, and scare the
+life half out of some of these miserable mummies, then I'll come along
+and recapture you. That should excite some curiosity, and perhaps bring
+in money to-morrow'."
+
+Nickie yawned lazily. "Oh, all right," he said, getting back to his
+straw; "but mind there are no guns. I've an objection to being hunted
+with guns--it's too wearing."
+
+That night a large, hairy animal of a species hither to unknown at
+Rabbit, made its way along the deserted main street of the township. The
+animal walked upright, like a huge monkey, its long hands swung below its
+knees. Mahdi had not gone a hundred yards when a large, stout man lurched
+out of the shadow of a tree and fell upon him.
+
+The large, stout man smelt strongly of consumed drink. He clasped the
+Missing Link to his breast for a moment, then swayed back, holding on
+with one hand. In the other hand he flourished a bottle.
+
+"Goot day, mein bruder; how are you?" he gurgled. Nickie growled his most
+terrible growl, and the stranger made some little show of surprise. "Vot
+is it der madder?" he said. "Blitzen, dot's a peaudiful winter overcoad
+vot you year mit der summer. Come'n haff er drink." He held the bottle
+towards Nickie the Kid. It was a bottle of square gin. All kinds of
+bottles were fascinating to Nickie.
+
+Mahdi faltered. Nickie was very partial to square gin, and although the
+Missing Link had a proper sense of duty, the inner man was weak.
+
+"Helup vourseluf, Sharlie," said Schmitz.
+
+Nickie helped himself. He helped himself liberally. Schmitz fell on
+Mahdi's neck, and embraced him freely. "Mein goot friend," he gurgled, "I
+like you. You shplended fellow. Dot's so, sure. Come mit me, my 'ous' to,
+und ye make a night mid it." He embraced Nickie again.
+
+"All der same," he said, in a puzzled tone, "I don't know me vy you vear
+dot hairy overcoad dose hot nides. Haff er drink."
+
+The Missing Link, standing grimly outlined in the darkness, raised the
+bottle in his two prehensile paws, and drank health to Schmitz.
+
+"Goot man," said Schmitz, embracing him again. "Now con mit me to my
+'ous' to, und we make the night." He grappled with Nickie, and the two
+seesawed towards Schmitz's hotel. The place was in complete darkness; the
+bar door was wide open.
+
+Schmitz dragged Nickie through the bar, with much bumping and more
+breaking of glass, into a back compartment, and there he fumbled for
+matches, forgot his mission, and sang a German song very drearily,
+stopping suddenly to say:
+
+"Vere haf you gone mit yourseluf, mein goot friend? Vot is der madder mit
+der lightness."
+
+He fumbled again. Nickie was in no hurry, he had the gin bottle.
+
+Schmitz found the matches, and lit a candle on the shelf. He turned
+drunkenly towards Nickie, and beheld what must have been a strange and
+mysterious sight to a commonplace Dutchman in his own home. Sitting on a
+chair facing him, with the gin bottle raised to his lips, was a mighty
+monkey--a great, red, hairy ape, as large as a man.
+
+The publican scratched his head wonderingly.
+
+"Mein gracious!" he said.
+
+"Dot iss a sdrange ting dot haff happened mit you, Sharlie," he said, in
+a wondering, small voice.
+
+"Sharlie!" he called. "Sharlie!" The Missing Link gave no reply.
+
+"Pless mein soul!" gasped the Dutchman.
+
+Suddenly a gleam of intelligence shot through the publican's boosy gloom.
+He pointed a finger straight at Nickie, lurched towards him, crossed the
+room in a stagger, and drove his inquiring digit against the mysterious
+visitor. The mysterious visitor was solid.
+
+Schmitz was beaten.
+
+"Sharlie," he said, "is it true dot you vos, or is it true dot you
+aind't?"
+
+Nickie offered him the bottle in a friendly way, and Schmitz took it and
+drank. The draught seemed to abolish all problems.
+
+"Now ye make dot night, Sharlie," said Schmitz. He staggered into the
+bar, and returned with an armful of bottles--all full of liquor. With the
+adroitness of an expert he knocked the head off a bottle of schnapps.
+"Dot is for you, Sharlie," he explained. The Missing Link assumed
+possession.
+
+Schmitz knocked the head off another.
+
+"Dot one for me iss," he said.
+
+Then the night began. The Dutchman drank and sang and danced, and a
+hundred times assured the Missing Link of his undying friendship. True,
+he had occasional spasms of reawakened amazement, when he would gaze at
+the man-monkey in stupid wonder, saying: "I don't understand me,
+Sharlie," but Nickie's extremely human manner of disposing of gin seemed
+to reassure him, and he would burst into song again.
+
+In due course Nickie grew jovial, and lost all sense of his make-up and
+his professional reputation, and he sang, too, and caper exuberantly
+about Schmitz's kitchen, while Schmitz, reclining in a corner on the
+floor, shook his fat sides with gargantuan roars of laughter. The sight
+of this gigantic ape dancing a Highland Fling stirred the drunken
+Dutchman to wildest merriment; he howled with delight.
+
+"Goot, goot! Some more Sharlie!" he yelled. "Dance, dance. Mein Gott,
+dot's der greadest sight I effer haff see me."
+
+This was the strange and awful spectacle Mrs. Schmitz tumbled upon,
+returning from a week's stay at Rattletrap. Her screams brought the
+red-headed stable boy to the rescue.
+
+Two minutes later, while Mrs. Schmitz was assuring one section of Rabbit
+township that her poor, miserable husband had sold his soul to hell, and
+was at that moment dancing fiendish dances with the devil himself in her
+kitchen, a red-headed youth, almost beside himself with horror, was
+stirring up the other section with the tale of Dutchy Schmitz howling mad
+in the hotel, while a great, hairy, hideous jim-jam capered on the floor
+before him.
+
+Rabbit was stirred at last. Professor Thunder was made unpleasantly aware
+of the fact when he discovered a crowd of patriots surrounding Schmitz's,
+preparing to burn out the devils that possessed it, having peeped timidly
+at the windows; and assured themselves of the unearthly nature of
+Schmitz's guest.
+
+The Missing Link, with Schmitz on his arm, came rolling from the back
+door, roaring and brandishing a bottle. The crowd broke and fled before
+them, and a minute later the bosom friends were rocking down the road
+together, singing insanely.
+
+How to recapture Nickie was the showman's real trouble now. He knew that
+persuasion would be useless with Nickie in his present state, and
+resolved to try force. He grappled with Nickie in the street, and Nickie,
+now feeling like a king in his own right, and valiantly asserting his
+majesty, resented this impudent interference, and fought with fine, royal
+spirit. For a moment or two Dutchy failed to realise the situation, and
+then, roaring like a bull, and swinging a bottle of stone gin, he went at
+the Professor.
+
+The bottle took Thunder in the back of the head. It ought to have killed
+him, but it didn't--it merely stretched him on the road unconscious. When
+he recovered he was on a couch in the hotel, with his head wrapped in a
+tablecloth, and day was breaking. No body knew what had become of Dutchy
+and the Missing Link, and the Professor returned to the tent, with a soul
+seething bitterness. He found Nickie in his cage, sleeping soundly, and
+alongside him on the straw lay the bulky form of Schmitz, the publican,
+in whose hand was still clutched a bottle of stone gin. The Missing Link
+had returned hospitality for hospitality, and side by side like brothers
+dear the carousers slept.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+HOBBS VERSUS MAHDI.
+
+IT was shortly after noon, and the day was warm and still. No one was
+stirring in Waddy. Professor Thunder had given up the idea that his
+eloquence could conquer the general lassitude, and was snoring in the
+tent of the Egyptian Mystic. Madame Marve was shopping in the township,
+and Matty Cann, the Living Skeleton, had come down from his throne and
+was curled up on a horse-rug. Ammonia, the orang-outang, sprawled on the
+floor of his cage, and the other monkeys were chattering angrily.
+
+Nickie sat with his back to the wall of his compartment, sweltering in
+the hot garb of the Missing Link, drowsing and day-dreaming of beer. He
+thought he was sitting in a sylvian glade, with an attendant nymph, where
+a cascade splashed over crystal rocks, and the cascade was beer--all
+beer.
+
+"Ello there!" said a thick voice. Someone was shaking the bars of the
+cage. "Get up and do some thin', blarst yer eyes! What have I paid yeh
+for?" continued the voice.
+
+Tish had taken sixpence at the door, and admitted a patron without giving
+due warning to the exhibits. It was a rule that the public was not to be
+admitted to the Museum of Marvels without proper notice being given to
+the company. The precaution was necessary to obviate the chance of the
+Egyptian Mystic being discovered in the act of preparing onions for the
+stew, or engaged upon some other menial task, to the destruction of her
+dignity and mystery as a distinguished foreigner with supernatural
+powers. Or the people might have come upon the Missing Link in heated
+debate with the Living Skeleton, or in the hearty enjoyment of a long
+beer, or possibly reading a sentimental novel.
+
+Nickie bared the long tusks of his mask in a malignant grin, but did not
+stir. He couldn't be expected to waste his arts and graces on a common
+drunk.
+
+The man rattled the bars of the cage again. "'Ello! 'Ello!" he cried,
+"shake yourself up! Le's see what yer made of. Get goin'. Give us a
+specimen of yer arts."
+
+The Missing Link yawned hideously, stretching his long hairy limbs, and
+blinked his little eyes at the visitor.
+
+"Tha's not so bad," growled the man. "You're a bit of an artist, anyhow,
+but I reckon you ain't nothin' t' some of the Missin' Links I've come
+across in my time. I've been in the business myself, so you can't monkey
+me, my man."
+
+Nickie sat up, growled in his best style, and scratched with the dull
+laziness of a tired ape.
+
+"'Ere, 'ere," cried the man, "'ere, 'ere, Bravo! Not too rotten That's
+first rate monkey business, take it from Ivo Hobbs. Let me interdoose
+myself. Mr. Mahdi. Ivo Hobbs, late o' Kitts and Killjammer's Whole World
+Show."
+
+Nickie walked along the back wall of his cage two or three times with
+simian ungainliness, turning with a peculiar spring that Mr. Crips had
+learned from the Orang.
+
+"Good enough!" said. Ivo Hobbs. "Good enough. There's no ticks on you,
+you're a stoodent, I can see. How's the game mate?"
+
+It was necessary to convince this beery intruder of his grievous error in
+taking Professor Thunder' celebrated Missing Link, Mahdi, from the
+tangled jungles of Darkest Africa, for a cheap fake. Nickie sprang to the
+perch with great agility, caught it with one hand, slowly drew up a leg,
+hooked a hind claw to the bar and hung so, blinking unconcernedly.
+
+"What oh!" said the audience, with enthusiasm.
+
+"That's a bit of all right. You're a husker. But there ain't no reason
+for this reticence with a brother professional. I was the bearded woman
+with Kitts and Kiljammer's show for over two years, I was Shake, mate."
+The visitor thrust a hand through the bars.
+
+Nickie dropped from his swing, landing lightly on four paws, ambled
+daintily across the cage, ran up the bars, and seated himself on a limb
+propped in a corner.
+
+The audience applauded generously.
+
+"Bli' me," he cried, "you're a fool t' waste them talents on a side show
+like this. You orter hitch on at one o' the great circuses."
+
+Nickie slid down the rope and resumed his leisurely scratching,
+prospected his ribs for a few seconds, and then made a sudden dash at
+Ammona, the orang, grappled with him through the bars, snatched away a
+little fur, and maintained a fierce scratching and snapping squabble for
+half a minute or so.
+
+This was one of Nickie's most effective bits of business. Whenever he
+heard an audience casting doubts on his authenticity as a genuine member
+of the monkey family, he work up a spluttering dispute with Ammonia and
+the battle was so realistic that it dispelled all doubts.
+
+"Well I'm jiggered." murmured Mr. Ivo Hobbs. "I could have sworn he was a
+fake." He pressed more closely to the bars, and peered at Nickie with a
+critical, if somewhat beery eye, and the Missing Link posed languidly in
+a monkey attitude. Suddenly Ivo jabbed at him with a stick. The stick was
+pointed, and it took Nickie in the ear.
+
+"Hell!" cried the Missing Link, bounding across his cage.
+
+Ivo burst into a roar of laughter. "That's all right, old bloke," he
+said. "You're a bonzer, but we all have our weak moments."
+
+Nickie was furious. This assault, combined with the heat and burden of
+the day, had dispelled his natural apathy. There was always a loose bar
+in the front of his cage, placed there for effect, so that the Missing
+Link might work up an occasional sensation by an apparent attempt to
+break away. Nickie dashed at this bar. It broke before him, and he came
+through, falling bodily on Ivo Hobbs, and bearing him to the ground. Ivo
+uttered a yell of apprehension. His beery doubts seemed to fly before
+this animal attack, and when he realised that he was being bitten and
+clawed mercilessly, he howled for help at the top of his voice.
+
+Professor Thunder rushed from his slumber, and discovered his Missing
+Link and a total stranger rolling and tumbling on the ground. By this
+time Nickie had inflicted no little grievous bodily harm upon the unhappy
+Ivo, and he allowed Thunder and the Living Skeleton to drag him off, and
+thrust him back into the cage.
+
+Ivo arose in great wrath.
+
+"This is unprovoked assault and battery," he cried, shaking his fist at
+the Missing Link. "I'll have the law on you."
+
+"But, my dear sir," protested the Professor, "you must have provoked the
+poor animal."
+
+"Animal be blowed. You can't jolly me. Think I don't know a fake when I
+see one, I'll have him run in in half a tick."
+
+Professor Thunder endeavoured to argue with Ivo, and hinted at
+compensation, but the injured man fled from the tent in a state of blind
+anger.
+
+"Let him go." said the Missing Link, vindictively. "He won't come back,
+He's had all the damages he wants."
+
+But he did come back. Ivo returned in a quarter of an hour and he brought
+a policeman with him, and on their heels came quite a crowd, Professor
+Thunder, with business-like precision, charged a shilling a head to all
+seeking' admission.
+
+"There he is!" cried Hobbs, "There he is!" He pointed to the Missing Link
+growling viciously and baring alarming fangs at the back of his cage. "I
+give him in charge for grievous assault and attempted murder."
+
+"Come, what's all this, me friend?" asked Constable Dunne, addressing the
+Professor.
+
+Hobbs had evidently had a few more beers to restore his faculties. He was
+now courageous enough, but vague in his mind and unsteady on his legs.
+
+"The man irritated my Missing Link, and the animal attacked him, as he
+deserved," said the celebrated showman.
+
+"Animal be blowed!" yelled Hobbs. "He's 'a man, and I give him in
+charge."
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed the Professor; "The fellow's drunk!"
+
+Constable Dunne peered at the Missing Link through the cage, and that
+intelligent animal never looked more malignant.
+
+"A man" said the officer, dubiously; "sure, he ain't lookin' it."
+
+"Arrest him!" said Ivo Hobbs.
+
+"Devil a wan o' me," answered Dunne. "You'd better proceed by summons, me
+man. 'Tain't me juty to arrist monkeys, an 'twould not be becomin' t'
+the' dignity iv an officer iv th' law, anyway, t' be seen draggin' a
+baste iv thim proportions through the street."
+
+Mr. Hobbs protested indignantly, and beerily, but the constable explained
+that according to a strict reading of the Act, dogs were not liable to
+arrest, "and in the oye iv th' law," he said, "monkeys is dogs."
+Eventually, Ivo Hobbs went away in Constable Dunne's company to take out
+a summons. The policeman endeavoured to persuade him to summon Professor
+Thunder, as the Missing Link's next of kin, but Hobbs stood drunkenly to
+his belief that the monkey was a man, and so the summons was made out
+against Mahdi, and was solemnly delivered, citing the Missing Link to
+appear at the Waddy Police Court on the following morning at 10 o'clock.
+
+"Here's a pickle," growled the proprietor of the world-famous Museum of
+Marvels.
+
+The Missing Link scratched his head over the document. "I'm nothing of a
+lawyer," he said, "but I've had a good deal of experience of police
+courts, and never knew a monkey to be proceeded against for assault--in
+fact, nothing lower in the animal kingdom than a Chinaman is amenable to
+the law."
+
+As a result of a long conference, Professor Thunder went out that evening
+and cultivated the acquaintance of John Lidlow, J.P. John Lidlow, Esq.,
+J.P., was the local butcher, and Professor Thunder found him a very
+companionable man with an amiable weakness for raw whiskey.
+Affectionately they made a night of it, and in the morning they had a
+mutual pick-me-up. The pick-me-up was concocted of knock-me-down rum and
+colonial beer, and ran into several editions.
+
+John Lidlow, Esq., J.P., was uncommonly sleepy and preternaturally solemn
+in court when the case of Hobbs versus Mahdi was called on for hearing.
+Ivo Hobbs explained his grievance clearly, and when the defendant was
+called upon, Professor Thunder stepped forward and explained:
+
+"The defendant, Your Worship, is my justly-celebrated man-monkey, Mahdi,
+the Missing Link."
+
+"Is he a man or a monkey?" asked the court, drowsily, opening one eye.
+
+"He's a bit of both, but mainly monkey, Your Worship."
+
+"It's a lie, he's a man," cried Hobbs.
+
+"Silence in the Court!" said His Worship, with portentous hauteur, "or
+I'll give you ten days for contempt. The defendant must be brought before
+us."
+
+"But, Your Worship," exclaimed the Professor, "it would not be safe, I
+assure you, The animal is wild. He was irritated by this man, it would
+not be safe to take him from his cage. He might attack the court."
+
+"Eh, what's that?" ejaculated the magistrate. "Attack the court? We don't
+allow that kind of thing here. I'd give the beggar twelve months."
+
+Constable Dunne whispered to the court, and Professor Thunder enlarged
+upon the shocking temper of the Missing Link when roused.
+
+"Very well," said the Magistrate, "if he cannot be brought to this court,
+the court will go to him. Justice must be done. This court stands
+adjourned to Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels."
+
+Very gravely John Lidlow, J.P., led the court to Professor Thunder's
+tents, and sedately he established himself behind a table before the cage
+of the Missing Link, and again the case was called on.
+
+"The Missing Link pleads guilty, Your Worship," said Constable Dunne.
+Professor Thunder whispered to him. "Through his next iv kin, Yer
+Worship," continued Dunne.
+
+"With extenuating circumstances. Your Worship," said the Professor. "This
+man attacked my Missing Link with a stick."
+
+The Missing Link at this moment bounded against the front of the cage
+with a blood-curdling growl, making seemingly frantic efforts to get at
+Ivo Hobbs. One of the bars broke before his terrific onslaught, and
+through the apperture Mahdi snatched and snapped at his adversary of
+yesterday, growling horribly the while.
+
+With a 'ell of terror Hobbs fled into a cement barrel.
+
+The Missing Link flopped from his cage, and advanced upon the J.P.
+
+The sight so upset the court in the person of John Lidlow that it sat for
+a moment, staring in blank horror across the table set for its
+convenience, then slowly tilted over in its chair, and fell heavily on
+the back of its neck, picked itself up, and made a bolt for the open. At
+the tent door the court turned for a moment, and cried breathlessly:
+
+"Fined five shillings or two days," and then it dashed out and away.
+
+Professor Thunder paid the fine with the greatest goodwill, considering
+the advertisement an ample recompense. Besides this presentation at court
+was a useful testimony in support of the his claims of the Missing Link,
+and the Waddy Bugle's grave account of the trial under "Police Court
+News" was added to the archives of the Museum.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE KIDNAPPERS.
+
+LOO was a small triangular township, subsisting on agriculture, road
+traffic, and the patronage of thirsty shearers and station hands from
+runs within a half-day's ride of Sawyer's "Emu Hotel," which was the
+incisive point of the triangle.
+
+Thunder's tent was pitched on a small clearing facing the "Emu Hotel."
+and Professor Thunder, clad somewhat after the manner of the bushranger
+in lurid Australian melodrama, in high boots, cord trousers, a red shirt,
+and an immense cabbage-tree hat, stood on a borrowed rum keg at the door
+of his show, and earnestly besought Sawyer's customers to visit his
+unrivalled show and complete their education.
+
+"Roll up, gents, roll up, roll up, roll up!" cried the Professor, in a
+voice keyed to stir the whole town ship. "Bring your families to learn
+how man sprang from the ape, and when the ape's got claws like my
+gorilla's he shows his good sense in springing. Walk in, walk in, walk
+in, all together, one after the other, and witness the most miraculous
+performance of Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic, converse with the
+educated pig, and behold for the first time the amazing Missing Link, the
+wonder of the universe, the only true authentic Missing Link now in
+captivity, certified correct in every particular by the great Darwin
+himself, and approved by all the crowned heads of Europe."
+
+It was Saturday noon, and the township of Loo was rapidly filling with
+convivial shearers. The sheds were cutting out at Dim Distance, Devil's
+Bend, and the Emu, and the men were full of money, and eager for beer and
+diversion.
+
+When a score or so had collected inside, the Professor came down from his
+keg, and assumed the office of lecturer, explaining the quaint physical
+peculiarities of Matty Cann, and the intellectual eminence of the
+educated pig, and then passing to his trump card--the Missing Link.
+
+"Here we have, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "a living exemplification of the
+truth of the teachings o the great Darwin. Behold the descent of man in
+all its stages, from the smallest ape that capers on the rocky
+declivities of the Himalaya Mountains, to the noble Missing Link himself,
+having the splendid proportions of the human man, and almost his god like
+intellect."
+
+One party of four young shearers from Devil's Bend exhibited great
+interest in Mahdi.
+
+"D'yeh mean t' say that animal's worth four thousan' quid?" asked one of
+these.
+
+"Four thousand seven hundred pounds, fifteen shillings, is the exact sum
+what was offered me by the Anthropological Society of Berlin," said the
+Professor, "but I wouldn't part with him for ten thousand."
+
+The shearers marvelled together, and watched Mahdi's movements with deep
+attention, and Nickie, acting up to instructions, glowered in the shade.
+When a visitor wanted to look into details, the Missing Link displayed
+quite human astuteness in retreating into cover in the gloom.
+
+"Suppose he's like us in most iv his ways?" continued Bill. "Does he
+smoke, 'r chew, 'r drink?"
+
+"Its considered by the faculty and all the scientific gents that proof of
+his being a near relation to the human race is found in the fact that he
+has a weakness for intoxicating liquors," said the Professor, sadly.
+"We've tried to reform him, but he refuses to become teetotal, showing
+how much a man he is."
+
+Bill and Ben and Mike and Fred applauded these sentiments. Then they
+returned to the Emu bar and had another drink.
+
+"Four thousan' bloomin' quid fer a blanky monkey!" said Bill, and he
+looked dreamily at his companions. "Four thousand quid!" he added. "It's
+a sin."
+
+"Now, supposin' that monkey was to get away! There'd be four thousan' o'
+th' best tearin' round in th' bush fer anyone t' drop on."
+
+"He couldn't," said Mike, "outer that iron cage."
+
+"He could," said Bill, "if he was helped." Ben, Mike and Fred woke up.
+They looked hard at Bill. Bill had a grave, still face. He winked his
+left eye suddenly.
+
+"If he did escape there'd be a reward. I reckon," said Ben.
+
+"Precisely," said Bill; "there'd be a reward. Now, if that Missin' Link
+could escape--if helped--and if there was a reward offered fer his
+capture, what's t' prevent us earnin' it?"
+
+The shearers looked at each other gravely. Then they all winked.
+
+"The spoutin' bloke sez he likes his fill iv tangle," said Bill, "well
+he'll get it t-night. I'm goin t' stand a spree fer me poor relation."
+
+That night at about ten o'clock, when Professor Thunder was concentrating
+the attention of his patrons on the fascinating boniness of Matty Cann,
+Nickie, who was taking his ease on the straw, became aware of a slight
+disturbance at his elbow, between the back of his cage and the tent wall.
+Blinking his eyes he discovered the shape of a man in the darkness. The
+man held a pannikin in one hand, and was offering it through the bars.
+
+"Here, old boy. Here old fellow," murmured the intruder, in a tone one
+adopts in propitiating strange dogs.
+
+He shook the pannikin, and the Missing Link detected the familiar flavour
+of rum, good red-rum, bush rum. Nickie sniffed again, and backed away,
+growling a low, guttural growl. The Missing Link had a great tenderness
+for rum, the smell of it excited profound longings, but he wanted time to
+deliberate. What was the game? "These fellows have heard Thunder
+describing Mahdi's fondness for liquor," thought Nickie. "They want to
+make him drunk, and see him play up. It's a lark. Shall I encourage them?
+I can do it safely to a moderate extent. It's like flying in the face of
+Providence missing drinks that are thrown at you. I'll encourage them to
+the extent of one drink, anyhow. Here's luck."
+
+The Missing Link seized that pannikin of rum, the Missing Link took a
+good, long pull, and in less than half a minute was curled up on the
+straw, dead to the world, a thoroughly hocussed man-monkey.
+
+When Professor Thunder came to shake up his justly celebrated Link, he
+found the cage empty, and a bar wrenched from its place in the back wall.
+He drew his own conclusions--conclusions most unfavourable to Mahdi--and
+used his own language. He closed his show, and went raging about Loo
+township in quest of his stray freak.
+
+Nickie the Kid awakened from a death-like sleep in the early hours of a
+warm summer Sunday. Dawn steeped the bush in crimson, the smoke of a
+dying camp-fire curled high in the air and its top most spiral caught the
+red glow of the young sun. About that camp-fire, twisted on their rugs
+and blankets on the grass in the quaint attitudes of out-door drunks, lay
+four shearers, Bill, Mike, Ben, and Fred. Near them were scattered
+various bottles, all empty.
+
+Nickie rubbed his eyes with his hairy paw, and stared at the recumbent
+figures. His head seen as capacious as an iron tank, and every inch of it
+held a special and independent ache. The Missing Link was trying to
+think.
+
+Understanding came in a flash. He had been stolen from the show. These
+rascals had given him hocussed rum, and had got him away, probably tied
+to one of the horses. His aching limbs hinted at that, and he could see
+the horses grazing among the trees.
+
+Nickie reviewed the situation. He was tethered to a tree, his bonds were
+stout, and his captors had not made sufficient allowance for the almost
+human intelligence of Professor Thunder's star performer. All about were
+scattered the utensils of a late supper, and with the aid of a stick the
+Link contrived to draw a knife within reach. With this he promptly cut
+the rope.
+
+When free Nickie went quietly and deliberately to work to overhaul an
+open swag. He took a coat, pair of trousers, a pair of boots, and a hat,
+and with these under his arm retired to the bush to make his toilet.
+
+An hour later three shearers, Bill, Fred, and Ben, riding at a gallop
+along the high road to Loo, came upon a man with a bundle walking
+cheerfully in the same direction. The horsemen pulled up.
+
+"Hi, mate, have you seen anythin' of a strange sort of animal on this
+road?" cried Bill.
+
+"Have I?" answered the man. "My word, I have! A great, big, red, hairy
+bunyip 'r somethin' charged out o' th' bush 'bout a mile back, bowled me
+over an' went howlin' down th' road in a cloud o' dust."
+
+"Which way?" gasped Bill.
+
+The pedestrian pointed in the direction of Loo. "That's th' way he went,"
+he said. "Cripes, I'd a' thought I seen a fantod on'y I bin teetotal fer
+a year."
+
+The shearers whipped up, and rode on at a gallop, and the man grinned
+after them with exquisite joy. "Well, life's worth living after all."
+said Nickie the Kid.
+
+Before Sunday night it was known at Loo that the Missing Link, which had
+been stolen or had escaped, was once more safely bestowed in Professor
+Thunder's Museum, and when the show opened on Monday there was something
+like a run on it. With the curious crowd came Bill, Ben, and Fred, Mike
+having been left to keep camp. At the sight of the shearers before his
+cage, the Missing Link simulated a paroxysm of ungovernable rage. He bit,
+glared, roared, and reaching his mighty claws towards Bill, made
+murderous sweeps in the air, as if desirous of disembowelling that
+hapless young man.
+
+"That's curious." said Professor Thunder, regarding the shearer sternly.
+"My Link don't often go on like that, and when he does he has good
+reason. See here, young gentlemen, what did you have to do with the
+purloining of my man-monkey Saturday night?"
+
+Bill protested fiercely. "Never put a hand on yer blanky monkey. Wouldn't
+touch him with er forty-foot pole."
+
+"Well, he as good as says you did."
+
+Bill grinned. "You can't send a bloke up on th' say so of a Missin'
+Link," he said. "You can't put a monkey in the witness box t' swear a
+man's character away."
+
+"I don't know," said the Professor. "That's a delicate point of law, but
+we may as well have a word with the constable about it."
+
+The shearers didn't stay to take part in the consultation with the
+constable--Professor Thunder had not expected them to. "They lit out in a
+great hurry," he explained to the Missing Link at lunch time. "With a bit
+of engineering I might have shaken a few pounds out of them in the way of
+compensation. I was too hasty. Now, we'll have to leave their punishment
+in the hands of heaven, and there is no money in that."
+
+"Heaven has punished them already, Professor," said the Missing Link,
+with a wide, simian smile.
+
+"How that?"
+
+Nickie's smile deepened. "There was eleven pounds in the pocket of the
+trousers I borrowed to come home in," he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE.
+
+THUNDER'S Museum of Marvels was showing at Wildbee, and doing only
+moderately, much to the Professor's disgust.
+
+Nickie the Kid was hurt, too, at the scant attendance.
+
+He had been acknowledged by experts to be the best Link ever exhibited in
+Australia, and Links included all sorts of hairy freaks, wild men of the
+woods, and shaggy eccentrics from Borneo; but Nicholas Crips could not
+rest satisfied as a mere interpreter of monkey character.
+
+Nickie reached out and developed, and his newest device was a dinner in
+the cage, an actual dinner, in which Madame Marve, bewitchingly dressed
+in a costume that was a cross between the uniform of a hospital nurse and
+the garb of a French peasant girl, acted as waitress, and the Missing
+Link figured as the diner. Actual edibles were used, and a "practicable"
+bottle of beer.
+
+This turn gave the Living Skeleton great concern. "I wish yer wouldn't do
+it, Nickie," said Matty, from his pedestal next the cage of the Missing
+Link. "Et's awful tryin' to a pore bloke what ain't 'ad nothin' fer
+dinner but a dry biscuit t' 'ave 't sit 'ere, patient as an owl, while
+you're hoggin' into ther grub, an' pourin' fresh beer into yersell
+regardless iv expense."
+
+"Get out," replied the Missing Link. "Call yourself an artist. Every pro.
+has to suffer for his art. You have to suffer for yours, going short in
+your eating so as to keep in proper condition. You wouldn't have a fellow
+artist sacrifice his chance of becoming celebrated just because it isn't
+quite pleasant to you to be a spectator at the banquet?"
+
+"Art he blowed!" said the Living Skeleton. "Give we a yard o' tripe an' a
+scoopful iv mashed potatoos."
+
+"You aren't cut out for a public career. Matty you ought to abandon
+Living Skeletons and get a good eating part."
+
+"Wish t' 'eaven I could, but there's ther missus an' ther kids t' think
+of."
+
+"Well, you can turn your head away when the banquet scene's on."
+
+"What if I do; can't I smell it?"
+
+There was no escape--poor Matty Cann had to be sacrificed to the
+requirements of art.
+
+Professor Thunder spread himself to make the new act a success; he
+procured a clean tablecloth, and napkin, a crush hat and black opera coat
+(both second-hand) were purchased for the Missing Link. A table, a chair,
+crockery, edibles, a bottle of beer, a walking stick, and an eyeglass
+were the rest of the properties.
+
+When the Professor had explained to his patrons his gallant capture of
+the only living Missing Link in the jungles of Darkest Africa, and had
+put Mahdi through his paces, to the great amazement of the bucolic
+audience, he said:
+
+"And now, ladies and gents. I have the pleasure of introducing to your
+notice an entire change of programme, exhihiting Mahdi, the Missing Link,
+in his wonderful act, called 'Civilisation.' You have, seen, ladies and
+gents, this here astonishing animal showing the natural qualities of the
+brute creation; you will now be privileged to see that side of his nature
+which approaches more nearly to humanity. This act, I may tell you,
+ladies and gents, though a miracle of training, would not have been
+possible if wasn't that the Missing Link has a good deal of human nature
+in his composition."
+
+After this the opera cloak was handed in to the Missing Link, and he put
+it on with awkward, monkey movements; he donned the crush hat, put the
+eyeglass in his eye, and with the walking' stick promenaded the cage with
+some uncouth affectations of humanity. Meanwhile, Madame Marve had
+carried the small table into the cage. She spread a cloth, put on a few
+articles, and offered Mahdi a chair.
+
+The Missing Link sat down, took off his hat, and closed it. Then he
+examined the bill of fare, and pointed to an item. While Madame was
+fulfilling the order Mahdi lounged in his chair, playing with the
+serviette, which he took from the ring, and spread on his lap.
+
+After this Nickie went through the process of ordering and eating a
+dinner, the aim being to do the thing not too humanly, but as a trained
+animal might do it, throwing in a good deal of coarse humour, at which
+the audience roared.
+
+The turn was a success, the spectators applauded vociferously.
+
+"Ladies and gents. I thank you," said the Professor, bowing. "You have
+witnessed a triumph of teaching and training over brute animal nature,
+and I hope that when you go out you'll speak well of a show that has been
+in some measure the victim of a hireling press here in Wildbee."
+
+"A marvellous performance, indeed," said a thin, shabby, sandy man,
+coming forward with a notebook. "Almost miraculous."
+
+"True for you, sir." said the Professor eyeing the man suspiciously.
+
+"Perhaps you can tell me. Professor Thunder, what branch of the Simian
+family this--this creature of yours belongs?"
+
+"Well," said the Professor, "he is said to be most closely connected with
+the gorillas."
+
+"Nonsense, man! Gorilla, rubbish! Look at that pelvis, sir, look at those
+arms. That's no more a gorilla than I am."
+
+"May I ask to whom I have the honour of speaking?" asked the Professor,
+in his coldly polite manner--his most superior professional attitude.
+
+"My name is Andrew McKnight, if that's any good to you. If that is a
+gorilla, sir, where are his vertebral processes, tell me that? And how
+comes it that his legs are almost as long as those of man?"
+
+The Missing Link, who had doffed his airs of civilisation, and was now
+crouched in the straw, began snarling at this. It seemed almost as if Mr.
+McKnight's criticism were making the poor beast angry.
+
+"You must remember, sir, that this animal is not of any known species,"
+said Professor Thunder, who had a large collection of stock phrases for
+such discussions. "He is in a manner a creature apart."
+
+"I should say so. Would you permit me to take cerebral measurements of
+your so-called Missing Link? I am interested in this matter, having
+opposed the Darwinian hypothesis for many years."
+
+Here Mahdi's snarling became diabolical, and he leaped about in a
+terrifying way.
+
+"Certainly," said the Professor, "Certainly, Mahdi is always at the
+service of science. But I warn you he is apt to be treacherous with
+strangers. He almost tore the arm off Professor Fitzpoof, of Dresden, and
+he nearly disembowelled a doctor in Dublin in 1895."
+
+"Oh," said the gentleman with the notebook, doubtingly, "in that case I
+had better not, perhaps."
+
+Mr. McKnight did not go away for some time. He lingered, watching Mahdi
+with great curiosity. He came back in the evening, too, and hung about
+the museum for hours. The Professor observed him with growing resentment.
+He suspected the intentions of the sandy man, and he was not wrong.
+
+Next day, shortly after the show opened, McKnight came again, with the
+same notebook and the same suspicious air. He brought five men with him,
+all solid men in Wildbee, one of them the local constable. This party
+assembled near the cage of the Missing Link, and listened carefully while
+the Professor reeled off the familiar story of the taking of Mahdi. They
+witnessed the stirring and entertaining dinner, and when the Professor
+had finished, and Mahdi had resumed his conch in the straw, McKnight
+stepped forward.
+
+"And do you expect us to believe all that rubbish, Professor?" he said.
+
+"I do," said Professor Thunder, with dignity, "but I don't care if you
+don't."
+
+"Well, we don't, sir, and what's more, we know you to be an impostor--a
+rank impostor--and as editor of the Wildbee 'Guardian,' it is my duty to
+expose you and your shameless fraud upon the public of this town and
+district."
+
+At this the Missing Link came out of his straw, growling, and springing
+to the perch hung by one hand, with his legs drawn up in a very
+monkey-like attitude.
+
+"What the deuce do you mean?" thundered the Professor, manfully.
+
+"I mean this," said McKnight, addressing the crowd "you have been
+victimised. That creature is no monkey. It is a human being of some
+kind."
+
+Nickie the Kid felt his heart sink, but he made a big bid for popularity.
+He capered about the cage and thrusting his face through the bars
+jabbered excitedly.
+
+"You're talking rubbish, man," cried the Professor.
+
+"Am I?" retorted McKnight. "Then perhaps you will have the audacity to
+tell us you have a monkey that can talk? Last night I crept under your
+tent at the back there when there were no people in the show, and I heard
+your absurd Missing Link talking, and what's more, he was teaching a
+magpie to talk."
+
+The Missing Link here made a fierce jump at Ammonia, who happened to be
+clinging to the dividing bars, caught him, and clawed viciously. Ammonia
+clawed back, and they fought a yowling battle that went a long way
+towards modifying the impression created by McKnight's remarks.
+
+The Professor was consternated for a moment, but the diversion Nickie had
+created gave him a chance to collect his wits and presently he began to
+laugh. He laughed uproariously. He clapped the Living Skeleton gaily on
+the back. "Laugh, you idiot!" he hissed, under his breath. The Living
+Skeleton laughed, and Madame Marve joined in the seeming merriment. She
+did not know why, but it seemed advisable.
+
+"Well sir," snorted McKnight, "you've finished that idiotic cackle,
+perhaps you will explain how a monkey comes to be acquainted with the
+English language."
+
+"Certainly," said the Professor, cordially, "I might prefer to kick you
+off the premises, but I will explain. Mahdi!" he called imperiously.
+"Forward, Sir."
+
+The Missing Link turned from his argument with Ammonia, and lurched to
+the bars.
+
+"I have not been able to teach my Missing Link to talk, though I've tried
+hard. He can do almost anything else, but not that. However, I dare say
+we can get him to address this intelligent audience. Mahdi, you see this
+nice gentleman here." Professor Thunder pointed to McKnight, "What do you
+think of him?"
+
+"I think he is an ass!" said the Missing Link, with emphasis.
+
+At this there was a yell of delight from the crowd, and even McKnight and
+his party were astonished.
+
+"There," cried McKnight, "what did I tell you? What does that prove?"
+
+"You hear, Mahdi?" said the Professor; "the gentleman wants to know what
+that proves?"
+
+"It proves I know an ass when I see one, answered the Missing Link.
+
+"You daylight robber! You unblushing fraud!" yelled McKnight.
+
+"Stay," cried the Professor, with dignity. "Is it possible, sir, you have
+never heard of the art of ventriloquism? I am a ventriloquist. The voice
+you heard was my voice thrown into the mouth of the Missing Link. In this
+way we are teaching a magpie to speak to the man-monkey as a new feature
+of my marvellous entertainment. As to your libellous accusations, sir,
+you will probably hear further on that point from my solicitor, and now
+good-day."
+
+"Be me sowl, this bates cock-fightin', McKnight," said the constable.
+"Th' monkey's right, Mack. Sure, it's an ass yiv made iv yersilf this
+day."
+
+When McKnight and his party had gone, and the museum was empty of
+patrons, the Professor mopped his brow, and drew a great breath.
+
+"It's lucky we were prepared for that emergency," he said.
+
+"I dunno," said the man-monkey; "why shouldn't a Missing Link talk,
+anyhow?"
+
+"Look here, Nickie, you're wantin' to be too talented," said the
+Professor. "Your overweening ambition will ruin everything. Why, bless my
+soul, you be wanting to shave clean and have a vote presently."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+AN ADVENTURE AT 'TWEEN BRIDGES.
+
+"BONY, my friend, I am weary of this," said the Missing Link.
+
+The Living Skeleton, who had been drowsing on his chair, beat the flies
+off and groaned.
+
+"So'm I." he replied, "but what's a cove t' do?"
+
+"Sneak my key out of the Professor's tent, and let's go and have a drop
+of something."
+
+"It ain't t' be thought of, Nickie," said Matty Cann, "where'd my livin'
+be? The Professor ud give me the run, an' there's the missus an' the
+kids."
+
+"No fear, he can't pick up Living Skeletons at every Street corner.
+Living Skeletons are rarer than you think. Why, a man of your physique
+could get a Living Skeleton billet almost anywhere. What you want is a
+little more impudence and self-respect Matty. An artist like you ought to
+be able to make his own terms, and not be tied up like a calculating dog
+or a two-headed calf."
+
+"D'yeh think so?" said Matty, eagerly.
+
+"Of course I do. Now, you just pinch the key of my cage. We'll trot out
+and have a drink. No one will be a penny the wiser."
+
+It was early in the afternoon of a midsummer day. Professor Thunder's
+Museum of Marvels was on show at 'Tween Bridges. The show was open for
+any casual sixpence but business in agricultural centres is dead at this
+hour, and the Professor and his wile slept in the tent of the Egyptian
+Mystic, and Miss Letitia, who was doorkeeper at the outer tent, overcome
+by the heat and burden of the day dreamed of that splendid time when she
+was to be acclaimed queen of the bare-back riders of all nations and
+generations.
+
+Nickie thirst had been nagging at him for two hours past. He always
+contended that the Missing Link's skin was provocative of a great
+drought. He pleaded with Matty, the bone man, appealing artfully to his
+professional pride, for Bonypart loved to feel in exalted moments that
+his position as the living skeleton was not insignificant after all.
+
+"We can slip on overcoats, trot over to the Bridge Inn, have a drink, and
+return before the Professor wakes." whispered Nickie.
+
+"I couldn't trust meself near th' counter-lunch. Nickie. I couldn't," Mat
+replied.
+
+But in the end the Missing Link had his way. Bonypart pulled on trousers
+and coat over his tawdry tights, Nickie turned back the ingenious
+head-piece and mask of Mahdi, the man-monkey, so that it hung between his
+shoulders, donned an overcoat and a pair of the Professor's knee boots,
+and the two slipped under the tent, and made for Peter's Bridge Inn, on
+the outskirts of a dusty township.
+
+An hour later the Missing Link and the Living Skeleton were sitting under
+the pile bridge a mile above the township, with a bottle of whisky
+between them. Bonypart was eating bread and cheese with an avidity which
+demonstrated the abandonment of all professional instincts. Nicholas
+Crips was drinking whisky slightly diluted with creek water. His drinking
+cup was a rusty sardine tin.
+
+Two hours later the Living Skeleton and Mahdi, the man-monkey, snored
+side by side in the shade of the bridge, the creek rippled at their feet,
+the sun blazed on the bushland on the left and right, and the whisky
+bottle stood between them.
+
+Meanwhile, Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was decorated with a
+placard, reading:
+
+"Closed on account of illness in the family."
+
+Professor Thunder himself was racing about the township and through the
+surrounding scrub, seeking his missing exhibits, fearing the worst, and
+promising himself the satisfaction of a terrible vengeance when he laid
+hands on the recreant pair. He knew that Nickie had gone off in his skin
+as the Missing Link, and realised the danger of a possible exposure. To
+communicate his loss to the people of 'Tween Bridge would practically
+mean giving the game away. At the inn he had been given a description of
+the two strangers who had refreshed themselves with three long beers, and
+then bought a bottle of whisky and certain edibles, and taken the road to
+One Tree Hill. Thunder recognised the description, and his language
+shocked Peters, the publican, who had once been a sinner and the champion
+bullock driver of the Western District.
+
+"Bread and cheese!" groaned the Professor, as he thrashed about in the
+scrub. "That Living Skeleton 'll be as fat as a pig."
+
+At about ten o'clock that night Dan Reynolds, riding from One Tree Hill
+to 'Tween Bridges, and thinking of Annie, the Cockie's daughter, whom he
+had left at the slip-rails, was amazed at a terrible apparition that
+arose before him on the moon-lit road. It was a strange, shaggy creature,
+half monkey half-man, covered from the top of his head to the knees in
+thick, crisp, tufted hair.
+
+Dan's horse snorted and, came back on his haunches, remaining so for an
+appreciable space of time, sitting up, glaring at the curious monster
+with dilated eyes and inflated nostrils, and Dan clung to the nag's neck
+and glared too, even more astonished than his horse.
+
+Never had Dan Reynolds beheld such an animal, never had he heard of its
+like, the horror of it out did all the fabled bunyips and Tantanoola
+tigers he had ever dreamed of. It was loathsome in its ugliness, capering
+there in the dust, brandishing a whisky bottle in the air, and uttering
+quaint, half-human yells and strangest feature of all, Reynolds noticed
+that it wore high, piratical hoots, coming well above the knee.
+
+Dan uttered a yell of mortal fear, Dan's horse gave a snort of terror,
+and bounding forward bolted at top speed down the track, rattled over the
+bridge, and dashed into Peter's yard, tearing down a gate and upsetting a
+water-butt in his rash flight, and Dan clung to his neck all the way, to
+be brushed off when the terrified steed climbed into the stable over half
+the door.
+
+The racket brought rush of men from Peter's bar. They gathered Dan
+Reynolds out of the garbage, and carried him into the kitchen. After a
+long beer Dan was able to describe the bunyip he had seen in the
+moonlight on the One Tree Road.
+
+Costello said it was a true jim-jam; he knew the breed well. He asked to
+be put on to the brand of whisky Reynolds had been drinking.
+
+"Jim-jam, be jiggered!" cried Reynolds. "By ripes, I ought t' kno a
+jim-jam when I see one, I've met plenty. Tell yeh, I'm ez sober ez a
+turtle, an' I seen bin with me own naked eyes, not three yards off,
+jumpin' round on th' road, howlin' somthin' awful an' shakin' a bottle in
+the air."
+
+Peters thought it might be a bunyip. He had heard of a bunyip in Pig
+Creek.
+
+Then Watkins had an inspiration "By gum," he cried, "I know what!" He
+turned eagerly to Reynolds. "'Bout my height was it?" he said, "with
+reddish hair all ever him, an' long arms reachin' to his feet almost?"
+
+Reynolds nodded, "Yes, yes," he said, "it's Perfessor Thunder's Missin'
+Link from the show up back o' the school. I was in there--I seen him.
+He's a terrible-lookin' big monkey, next to a man. The show's closed, an'
+the Perfessor's' bin huntin' all over th' place after some-thin'. That's
+what--it's his Missini' Link fer a quid."
+
+Reynolds gave further explanations, there was more excited talk, and then
+Watkins suggested an expedition to capture the monster.
+
+"You can bet the showman 'll be glad to pay a bit t' have him back. He
+mus' be scared about losin' him, else he wouldn't have kep' it dark.
+It'll be a lark, an' it means drinks round at least."
+
+So it came about that a party, armed with guns and club and carrying
+strong ropes, started out from the Bridge Inn, under the guidance of Dan
+Reynolds, to capture the Missing Link, supposed to be at large in the
+vicinity of McCarthy's paddock.
+
+Nickie the Kid had awakened from his slumber under the bridge, had
+partaken further of the whisky, then divesting himself of his overcoat
+and replacing the mask and head-gear of Mahdi the man-monkey, had gone
+forth into the bush to proclaim his kingship to the trees, and awaken the
+echoes of the hills with Bacchic song. He was enjoying a song and dance
+near the spot where Reynolds came upon him, when the hunters discovered
+him. The sight filled them with proper awe and great discretion.
+
+Mahdi looked a truly formidable brute, capering there in the shadow of
+the gums, and his cries, stifled and made animal-like by the mask, added
+to the qualms of the Party.
+
+Nickie saw the hunters on the chock-and-log fence ready to retire
+precipitately should he advance with homicidal intentions, and a vague
+idea that he was performing professionally before an attentive audience
+took possession of his bleary mind. He capered fantastically, and made a
+foolish attempt to climb a tree. Then he jumped up and down like a monkey
+on a stick, throwing out his long arms, and growling ominously.
+
+"By cripes, he's er dangerous beggar," said Scott. "He'd tear yer limb
+from limb. Better cripple him. I think."
+
+Scott raised his gun and fired. Fortunately, Scott was nervous, and
+missed, but the miss was a narrow thing, and Nickie heard the ping of the
+bullet and the plunk as it buried it in the bark of the tree behind him.
+
+Suddenly a spasm of comprehension came to Nickie, despite the whisky, and
+he made a leap the gum-butt, and hastily entrenched himself. He was being
+fired at, and it was neither pleasant nor healthy to be fired at, that
+much he realised. He peered, monkey-like, from behind the tree, and made
+an effort to grasp the situation. Scott was taking aim again.
+
+"No no," said Watkins, "we mustn't kill him unless it's necessary. He's
+very valuable. The Professor says he's worth a matter o' four thousand
+pounds. Let's scatter an' surround him, come up on him from all points,
+an' knock him out with the sticks. Scott and Peters holdin' their guns
+ready t' pot him if he gets hold of anyone."
+
+This plan was adopted after some argument, and the party of hunters
+scattered, and commenced to close in towards Mahdi, the man-monkey, going
+very warily. Nickie had forgotten everything by this, however, and
+sitting with his back to the tree was drowsing, and faintly asserting
+that he was a king, the most mighty and dazzling' of all monarchs known
+to man, when the valiant hunters fell upon him.
+
+The rush came suddenly, and in a twinkling half-a-dozen clubs were
+battering at Mahdi's unhappy head and thumping on his unfortunate ribs.
+Every man wanted to get a lick at the monster, and every man got it.
+Luckily, Nickie's skull was thick, and the Mahdi head-dress offered it
+some protection, otherwise there would have been an instantaneous and
+fatal termination to the artistic career of Nicholas Crips.
+
+As it was, Nickie's senses were battered out of him, and within a few
+minutes, he was so bound round with rope that he looked like a huge
+Cocoon. Two saplings were cut, and suspended between these, and borne on
+the shoulders of eight men, the Missing Link was carried back through the
+township of 'Tween Bridges. The hunters shouted jubilantly, fired their
+guns, and yelled triumphant songs as they went, and the whole of the
+inhabitants turned out and made a triumphal march of it, pressing forward
+to see the monstrous ape dangling between the saplings.
+
+So Mahdi, the Missing Link, was brought home to the Museum of Marvels.
+When Nickie was dumped on the floor of the tent, Madame Marve screamed
+believing he was dead.
+
+"We shot him first," Watkins explained, "an' then we got at him with our
+sticks."
+
+"Great heavens!" gasped the Professor, thought of manslaughter flashing
+upon him. "You might have murdered him."
+
+"He might 'ave murdered us," replied the veracious Watkins, "Why, his
+struggles was somethin' awful, an' he roared like a lion an' bit an'
+tore. It took ten of us t' down him, an' then he bit through Orton's leg,
+all' knocked Billy Tett sick and 'epless. I reckon it's worth a flyer,
+mister."
+
+"But if he's killed--if he's killed!" cried the tremulous Professor.
+
+Thunder and Madame Marve carried Nickie into he Mystic's tent; the cut
+away the ropes that were choking him, and discovered that although gory
+and bruised, he still lived and breathed, and then the Professor, always
+quick to seize, an opportunity, stood the hunters a whole barrel of beer,
+and till well on to daylight 'Tween Bridges was agitated by drink and
+reiterations of the sensational story of the capture of the man-eating
+Missing Link.
+
+At sunrise, Bonypart returned to the show, contrite and trembling for his
+billet, and by this time Nickie the Kid, his bruises painted with iodine,
+and his battered head liberally patched with court plaster, was sleeping
+off the effects of his overdose of whisky.
+
+The truants had to be on duty early that day, for the story of the escape
+of the man-monkey and, his capture by the heroes of 'Tween Bridges
+brought people from all over the district to inspect the marvel, but
+Madhi remained on his straw in the dark recesses of his cage, stiff, sore
+and filled with bitterness, while Professor Thunder explained to his awed
+patrons the animal's amazingly human viciousness, his love for drink, and
+his utterly depraved nature.
+
+"D'yeh think I'm fallin' into fat. Nickie?" whispered the Living
+Skeleton, from his pedestal that evening. "I ate an awful lot o' cheese."
+
+The Missing Link shook his head and groaned. "Next time I get tight I
+won't do it in character," he said, "my realisation of the part is too
+convincing."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE LINK'S LAST APPEARANCE.
+
+IT is not forgotten that Mr. Nicholas Crips was a man of amatory
+instincts; he had a very warm if not particularly sincere regard for the
+sex, and in his brighter moments, when a relapse from his natural
+dilatoriness induced him to have a clean-shave, a perfunctory combing,
+and a general trimming-up, ladies of a certain class approaching the
+middle-ages found him not wholly forbidding.
+
+Nickie's close application to an artistic career as the leading feature
+of Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels had lifted him out of what had
+become an habitual impecuniosity, and in his brief unprofessional moments
+he wore a whole suit and boots that did not openly advertise his sockless
+condition.
+
+In addition, Nickie was leading a fairly fat and easy life; he had put on
+condition; he was quite at his best; and a flirtatious matron might have
+found him a fairly presentable person. Madame Marve, the Egyptian Mystic,
+was a good wife to Professor Thunder, and a good mother to Letitia,
+according to the lights of show people at the conventions of the game,
+but she was still young enough to appreciate genuine admiration, and had
+sufficient of the vanity of the profession to roll a lively, dark eye for
+effect now and again.
+
+Naturally, the lively, dark eye rolled in Nickie's direction once in a
+way, and Nickie responded with the beams of a tender, grey orb. He had a
+way of languishing a little when only Madame Marve was near, and he
+breathed sighs of simple eloquence.
+
+Mr. Nicholas Crips had the primitive instincts of the pure individualist;
+fine notions of honour and delicate concepts of propriety had no
+influence on his modes of conduct.
+
+It may be inferred in these circumstances that Mr. Crips had no
+compunction, about coveting his neighbour's wife.
+
+Madame Marve had a light heart and a plump waist, She did not take
+Nickie's advances very seriously, but she found a certain piquancy in the
+situation, and was not above a reciprocal sigh or a responsive hand
+pressure.
+
+This unlooked-for development in the internal economy of the Museum of
+Marvels might have provided Professor Thunder's patrons some amazing
+novelties had they been permitted peeps behind the scenes. For instance,
+there were occasions when the public was deaf to Professor Thunder's
+appeals, and resolutely passed by on the other side. On such occasions
+the Egyptian Mystic might have been discovered in the small, back tent,
+with white, well-shaped arms bare to the shoulder, busily engaged
+fabricating an Irish stew for the evening meal. The Museum was very
+partial to Irish stew, even the Living Skeleton liked the smell of it.
+Ten to one the Missing Link would be found hovering about Madame at such
+a time, garbed in his simian costume, but with the mask-like make-up
+turned back, exposing Nickie's florid countenance and rakish grin.
+Possibly at such moments Nickie would presume to squeeze Madame's waist.
+He might even venture to steal a kiss. If so, Madame's protest might be
+forcible, but it would not be vindictive.
+
+Madame was not disposed to quarrel with Nickie; he was a profitable
+adjunct; the Museum had never possessed so versatile a missing link, and,
+as for a little philandering--pooh, it was all in a lifetime.
+
+The tents were pitched at Catcat. The situation was similar to that
+described above, but Professor Thunder had the bad taste to intrude when
+Nickie was in the act of forcibly extracting a kiss in revenge. Madame
+Marve having playfully covered him with flour.
+
+Professor Thunder was a jealous man, and an inflammatory one. He uttered
+a roar that would not have discredited the Missing Link in its native
+jungle in the wilds of Darkest Africa.
+
+"You infernal blackguard!" he yelled.
+
+"Now, Jim," cried Madame Marve in sudden alarm, standing between the men
+with her paste pin.
+
+"Out of my way, woman!" cried the Professor, tossing her aside.
+
+Professor Thunder fell upon Nicholas Crips, and smote him hip and thigh.
+He was not content to smite--he kicked. He kicked hard--and often. His
+fury increased with the measures he took to wreak it.
+
+"Jim! Jim!" pleaded Madame Marve, "you'll ruin the skin."
+
+The Missing Link's skin was an expensive item, but the Professor forgot
+his cupidity in vindicating himself as an outraged husband. He continued
+to kick, and then, taking Nickie by the scruff and the back, he rushed
+him from the tent, and pitched him headlong into the garish day.
+
+There were a few youths and half a score of children loitering about.
+Fortunately, the mask-like structure covering Nickie's nose, cheeks and
+chin, had fallen into place, and what the loiterers saw was infuriated
+man kicking a gigantic monkey, and assailing him with vehement profanity.
+The sight was sufficiently amazing. The children fled, screaming, to
+carry the astonishing news through the township. The youths stood off and
+yelled.
+
+The Missing Link rolled to some distance, and backed against a tree.
+
+"Don't show your nose inside my show again, you dirty crawler!" said the
+great entrepreneur. "If you do, by the Lord Harry, I'll break every bone
+in your body."
+
+People were coming from all directions, and a small crowd had already
+gathered from the adjacent houses. The inhabitants of Catcat drew as near
+as they dared, and gazed in open-mouthed amazement from Thunder to the
+Missing Link.
+
+"I'll teach you to come creepin' and sneakin' into a man's home, tryin'
+t' ruin his happiness," the Professor roared, and he made another dash at
+Nickie.
+
+The Missing Link slipped round the tree, and Madame Marve caught her
+husband, by the arm and dragged him hack.
+
+"What's he done, mister?" asked a bystander.
+
+"What's he done?" bellowed Thunder, the actor instinct in him coming out
+strongly. "What's he done, sir? This infamous scoundrel has tried to
+wreck my home, sir, to blight my peace of mind."
+
+"What, th' bloomin' Missing Link?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the perfidious Missing Link; the ungrateful Missing Link that
+I warmed in this bosom, and that has turned and stung the hand that fed
+him. But now I know all, the villain is unmasked, and if the slimy trail
+of the serpent enters the abode of peace again, by Heaven! I'll beat the
+life out of him."
+
+A crowd had now collected, and when Madame Marve dragged her husband into
+the tent all attention was turned upon Nickie, who cowered against the
+tree, his mind busy on a way out of the peculiarly unpleasant situation.
+Thunder was still storming inside, and presently he reappeared, and
+hurled an armful of shirts, boots, trousers and other human habiliments
+into the air. These were the belongings of Nicholas Crips.
+
+The people of Catcat maintained a respectful distance, not knowing for
+certain what so formidable an animal might do next.
+
+"Better mind out," said one youth; "he bites! He bit the bloke inside.
+Didn't yeh 'ear him say?"
+
+On the whole the attitude towards the Missing Link was hostile. It was
+felt that here was a dangerous brute at large. Several armed themselves
+with stones and sticks. Inside Professor Thunder was still raving to
+drown Madame's rational arguments. Twice he burst into the open with
+fresh invectives for Nickie, and some trifling piece of dress or property
+to hurl at him; but Madame Marve and the Living Skeleton hung on his
+coat-tails and dragged him back.
+
+Nickie had a thought of lifting his mask and letting his humanity be
+known to the crowd, but there were many present who had paid to see the
+show, and these might take it into their heads to resent the imposition.
+Besides, Professor Thunder might relent. On the whole, it seemed better
+to await developments. Crouched against the tree, the Missing Link
+glowered at the people. If they came too near, he bared his fangs and
+growled ominously, and the venturesome ones backed away precipitately.
+
+Somebody threw a clod of earth, and it smote Mahdi on the side of the
+head. The Missing Link sprang towards the crowd with a fearful cry. His
+antics were most alarming. The people ran, but they edged back again, and
+another clod thrown. Then came a stone. A second stone hit Nickie on the
+shin, and with a yell of pain he took cover behind the butt.
+
+There was a burst of laughter from the crowd, and a rush for stones.
+Missiles fell about Nickie in a shower. Suddenly the situation had
+assumed a dangerous complexion. The crowd opened in a circle to get at
+the monster; stones rattled about his head.
+
+With a horse cry, with eyes rolling and teeth bared in a shocking
+grimace, the Missing Link dashed at the spot where the circle was
+weakest, broke through, and went bounding up the township's single
+street.
+
+Believing now that the great monkey was afraid, the crowd trooped after
+him, yelling as they ran, snatching up stones and other missiles from the
+road. Terror lent wings to the Missing Link. He raced up the dusty road
+in the white heat of a blinding summer day, and the stones flew about him
+as he ran.
+
+Those of the inhabitants of Catcat who had had no hint of the partial
+disruption of Thunder's unparalleled show ran to their doors, and beheld
+the hunt with speechless wonder. They saw a huge, monkey-like creature
+speeding up the street, pursued and pelted by a clamorous throng.
+
+Nickie's physical condition was not good, he was ill-trained for a
+footrace, his wind was bad; he felt that he must presently succumb, and
+then Constable Daniel Mack loomed before him as a possible saviour.
+
+Constable Mack had stepped from Hogan's store, drawn forth by the yells
+of the pack. He looked and beheld a terrific creature rushing towards
+him, erect like a man, but covered with thick, short, reddish hair, and
+displaying a face of demoniacal ugliness. Constable Mack had his good
+points; one of them an appreciation of the fact that discretion is the
+better part of valour. He turned to run for his valuable life, but too
+late; the monster was upon him, it grappled with him, it hung on, and the
+pair rolled in the dust together.
+
+The zealous and intelligent officer thought his last day had come, but
+awoke presently to the knowledge that no harm was being done, and a voice
+was crying crying in his ear:
+
+"For God's sake, run me in! Arrest me! They'll kill me!"
+
+Constable Mack sat up in the dust, and stared stupidly at the Missing
+Link.
+
+"Blarst me if it ain't Perfessor Thunder's man-monkey!" he said.
+
+"Yes, yes," gasped Nickie. "Run me in. Be quick about it."
+
+The crowd was forming about them, only refraining from using missiles out
+of respect for the law.
+
+"Be th' holy, th' baste can spheak!" murmured the policemen.
+
+"They'll kill me. Put me in the cell," pleaded the Missing Link.
+
+"Troth an' I will," answered Mack; "but niver a one iv me knows iv ut's
+lagel arristin' monkeys."
+
+Nickie was run in. Next morning he appeared to answer a charge of
+insulting behaviour, inciting a breach of the peace, and assaulting the
+police. Thanks to Matty Cann, a change of raiment was made in the cell,
+and Nickie Crips appeared in court in his proper person, and was fined
+two pounds.
+
+Nicholas Crips paid his fine, collected his belongings from the Museum of
+Marvels, and went forth into the great world again, a man amongst men.
+His career as an artist was ended.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+NICHOLAS CRIPS came back to Melbourne, the image of a reputable and
+orderly citizen. He had accepted office as a billiard-marker in a
+township hotel while his whiskers grew; and now, full-bearded, dressed in
+a new suit of sedate, grey tweed, wearing an excellent hat and whole
+boots, he re-entered the city. His pockets were fairly-well lined, much
+of the proceeds of his professional engagement under Professor Thunder
+having been stored by Nickie as a provision for a long journey he was
+contemplating. Nickie the Kid had mapped out for himself a
+well-considered and wholly excellent scheme of life as a man of
+comparative affluence, but that life must be lived under alien skies.
+
+In the small chamois bag lurking next his heart was the talisman that was
+to make an existence of comfort and good living possible to the vagabond
+and outcast. The diamond is the true philosopher's stone.
+
+Nicholas put in a few days sauntering about Melbourne, swinging a
+neatly-rolled silk umbrella, smoking very excellent cigars. He passed
+several frowsy acquaintances of other days, and on two he bestowed small
+alms. He felt great satisfaction in the fact that none of his former
+companions recognised Nickie the Kid in the well-groomed, well-dressed,
+sleek, whiskered citizen.
+
+On the third afternoon Mr. Crips entered a jeweller's shop, and placing a
+small stone on the pad before the man behind the counter, said:
+
+"Would you be so good as to tell me the value of that diamond, sir? I
+picked it up on the floor of a first-class railway carriage the other
+day, and having no means of testing it, I thought I might, eh, venture to
+ask an expert."
+
+The jeweller took up the stone, examined it, subjected it to a simple
+test, and handed it hack to Mr. Crips:
+
+"A good carbon, but practically valueless," he said.
+
+Had Nicholas Crips received a blow full in the face he would not have
+betrayed greater consternation. His cheeks turned grey, he gripped the
+counter, all his assumed ease fell from him, he dropped every precaution,
+forgot the grim necessity for care and cunning.
+
+"It is not a diamond?" he gasped.
+
+The jeweller shook his head. "It an awful disappointment," he said, "but
+you may be sure you'll hear of it pretty quickly if you ever have the
+luck to pick up a true diamond of that size."
+
+Nicholas hadn't the spirit to thank the man. He turned into the street.
+The buildings swam in a garish light, he felt his head rocking, and his
+feet seemed scarcely to touch the paving stones rising and dipping under
+him like a choppy sea. He drifted into a bar, and drank brandy, and went
+forth again with renewed strength and revived hopes.
+
+The jeweller was mistaken or ignorant, the diamonds must be genuine.
+Nickie selected another stone, and told the same tale at a pawnbroker's
+shop in another part of the city. The benignant Hebrew passed judgment
+after a glance.
+
+"Paste, my boy," he said, "not vorth ninepenth."
+
+Grown rash in his anguish and anxiety, Nicholas Crips visited other
+shops. The experts all told the same tale. The chamois bag held nothing
+but carbon counterfeits! The prospect of a life of ease and elegance
+faded away. It had been a vision, an illusion. Nickie's philosophy was
+not proof against this stroke. He felt broken, beaten. In the seclusion
+of his small room in a respectable suburban boarding-house, Nicholas wept
+and brooded. And now that the possibility of the splendid reward was
+gone, Nickie dwelt upon the fearful risk he had run more than he had done
+in all the long months since he knelt by the murdered man in Bigg's
+Buildings. He realised that in offering these sham stones for inspection
+he had probably done a mad thing. The act might bring the noose about his
+neck, if he were arrested, who would believe the absurd story he had to
+tell.
+
+Nickie had been careful to betray no particular interest in the great
+murder case in the presence of his friends in the Museum of Marvels. He
+knew that the fictitious Rev. Andrew Rowbottom had been inquired for by
+the police as a man who might provide a clue, but the search for him had
+not been warmly followed up, it being assumed that he was some trumpery
+imposter. In any case, his importance was forgotten in a splendid
+dramatic idea entertained by the detectives, inculpating a clever and
+notorious criminal. The notorious criminal proved an alibi, and after
+being a nine days' wonder the great diamond robbery and murder case was
+supplanted in the public mind by an even more sensational crime. Nickie
+in his terror of being associated with the murder had been careful, up to
+now, to betray no interest. He had evaded conversation about it, and only
+occasional papers had come into his hands at the show. Now he was eager
+to know all the evidence, anxious to account for the presence of the
+paste stones in the pocket of a reputable diamond dealer.
+
+Mr. Crips determined to seek out "Mary Stuart." All hope of a comfortable
+future was not lost. "Mary Stuart" must provide for her scape-goat. It
+should be her pleasing duty to clothe and feed that hapless animal for
+the remainder of its days.
+
+In pursuit of his inquiries Nicholas turned up at Whitecliff on the
+following Sunday afternoon. To the immense astonishment of the master and
+mistress of that stuccoed mansion, Nickie was neat and clean, spick and
+span: he wore pince-nez glasses and spoke like a gentleman.
+
+Nickie greeted his brother William with chastened melancholy, his manner
+towards his sister-in-law was courteous and kindly. He talked of
+reformation and a new life, of the honourable and onerous position he now
+occupied in a reputable Sydney business, and of his approaching marriage
+with an excellent, middle-aged, maiden lady of means. Deftly he worked
+round to a tall, aristocratic woman who had appeared a Mary Queen of
+Scots at the memorable fancy-dress ball at Whitecliff.
+
+Brother William groaned, sister Jean sat up very straight, and sniffed
+ominously. "The creature!" she said.
+
+"That woman was no friend of ours, Nicholas," said brother William,
+hastily.
+
+"I met her in your house," said Nicholas, "and from a brief conversation
+I had I was deeply interested. It has occurred to me lately that if she
+still holds the same views she would be of vast assistance to my firm in
+a transaction we are meditating."
+
+"Have nothing to do with her," cried William. "The creature was an
+adventuress; she worked her way into our confidence with trickery and
+fraud, presenting herself in society here as a lady of title. It was
+afterwards proved that she had come to the country as the companion of an
+infamous scamp who at that very time was serving a sentence of seven
+years for attempted burglary and firing on the police. The woman
+disappeared shortly after the occasion you mention. She left the country,
+I imagine. At any rate, the police were pursuing her for some time for
+passing valueless cheques. Please do not mention her name in this house;
+it awakens painful recollections, Nicholas."
+
+Mrs. William sniffed more significantly than before. "Williams cashed one
+of those cheques," she said bitterly, with a venomous glance at her lord
+that told volumes.
+
+Nicholas recognised in that moment that the prospect of an easy,
+well-clothed, well-fed, middle age at the expense of Mary Queen of Scots
+was out of the question. He consoled himself to some small extent by
+borrowing ten pounds from brother William after dinner.
+
+Mr. Crips employed himself on the following day reading up the murder
+case in back numbers of the Age in the newspaper annex of the Public
+Library. He had to read a great deal of superfluous matter, and of many
+idle schemes and excursions on the part of the police before he came upon
+an illuminating little item in the shape of a casual bit of testimony
+from a friend of the dead man. The friend explained that the diamond
+dealer always carried in a small leather bag in his breast pocket a fine
+assortment of paste brilliants, with the deliberate intention of
+deceiving thieves who might attack him at any time. His idea was that the
+thieves would seize this case and make off without prosecuting a further
+search. But the murderer, whoever he was, was not content with the false
+stones; he had secured L5,000 worth of pure diamonds!
+
+The story of the paste jewels was not repeated, and nobody seemed to have
+found any significance in it. At this late hour Nicholas Crips discovered
+so much meaning in it that he went out into the wide Domain to be alone
+among the trees to think it over. His thoughts came back always to the
+crucial point.
+
+"I got the paste brilliants," he muttered. "She got the real diamonds.
+She had them about her when I entered. She knew of the carbons, and she
+stalled me off with them. Lord, what a mug I was!"
+
+Even in his great bitterness of spirit Nicholas could not help admiring
+the woman who had so completely sold him, and raising his hand in a mock
+salute, he said aloud:
+
+"Mary Queen of Scots You're a DAISY!!"
+
+From Prince's Bridge that night Mr. Crips emptied a small bag of
+glittering mock diamonds into the river, and, two days later, he looked
+over the rail of an out going steamer, watching Australia receding in the
+distance, and, to his fertile imagination, the outline on the horizon
+took the shape of a gallows with a pendant noose.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Missing Link, by Edward Dyson
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