The Haunted Pajamas Part 28

"I never sit down, sir," he said stiffly; "never!"

"By Jove!" I explained.

"To be sure!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billings, looking extremely silly.

The professor appeared not ungratified with the sensation he had produced and condescended to smile; that is, if you can call a creasing and wrinkling like the cracked end of a hard-boiled egg a smile.

"You say, 'sit down,' sir," he said, addressing me. "I ask you, in turn: Is not 'sitting down' recrudescence back to the primordial?"

So saying, he took a pinch at my shirt front and stepped back again impressively. Still addressing me, he continued:

"It is such thoughtless indulgence of muscles growing obsolescent that r.e.t.a.r.ds the evolution of our species, a species, sir, which I claim is coessential in fundamental attributes with contemporaneous amphibia. Ha!

I surprise you, perhaps? Can you note in me a resemblance to a batrachian?"

I didn't know. And, dash it, I was afraid to chance it. Tried my jolly best to think what a batrachian was. It came to me like a flash that it sounded like something in Italy.

"By Jove, you do, though, awfully!" I exclaimed, trying to brighten up over it. "Doesn't he, Billings? Noticed a resemblance right off, don't you know."

Billings went to nodding with an air of pleased surprise. Dash me if I believed he knew what a batrachian was, though, any more than I did. But Billings never admits anything.

"Sure," he said glibly. "I was half suspecting it; why, look at the skin, you know--and features!"

"By Jove, yes!" I said, feeling encouraged. "Head, mouth, nose, eyes and--" I was going to say "hair," but I remembered in time about the wig.

The professor looked awfully pleased. He gave me a finger again.

"Such perspicacity--ah--is rare in one who looks so--"

He coughed slightly, then resumed:

"How gratifying, indeed, to meet another investigator! A student in zootomy, no doubt? Ah! Do not deny it; I divined it at once. A delightful recreation, sir--a game, absorbing but elusive."

"Awfully jolly, you know," I agreed. "Ripping, I say!"

"Surest thing you know," chirped Billings. I wondered if it was anything like polo.

And then, by Jove, thinking of polo sent me off again thinking of Frances. Not that she was like polo, dash it, but I wished she could see me play.

The professor took another pinch from my shirt front and favored me with a rusty smile.

"Ah!" he said: "You must take time to look into a little monograph of mine: _Man in Miniature; a Study of the Anthropology of the Frog_. You regard the frog, of course?"

"Oh, I say, yes--fine, you know!" I answered, my mouth watering. By Jove! I thought of the devilish good things they got up in season down at the Cafe Grenouille.

"My dear sir!" The professor bowed to me. "I can not express to you how gratifying to me this meeting is. I must get a list of your societies and degrees. So few appreciate the frog; so many, even in the scientific world, deride my published claim that congenious with man is the _rana mugiens_ or American bullfrog."

By Jove! they were certainly congenial with me, all right.

"Awfully hard to swallow unless well done, don't you know," I demurred thoughtfully.

"Truly incredible, sir!"

The professor took another pinch and held it in front of him.

"But I have allowed for that," he added, emphasizing with his other hand. "My frog brochure meets that difficulty and whets the appet.i.te of the most mediocre."

"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed eagerly, "we must tell Marchand about it over at the club." I was so devilish tired of his eternal _sauce delicieuse_, his _sauce aigre_, his _sauce ecossaise_ and the rest, don't you know.

The professor inclined his head gravely.

"Ha, French! Then Monsieur Marchand has done something with the frog, has he?" he questioned.

"Twenty-nine different stunts," Billings replied proudly. "I _know_ because I'm on the House Committee. Yes, _sir_, frogs are his specialty; that man can get more out of a frog than any other living man."

The professor looked a little nettled.

"Oh, indeed!" he said rather coldly.

"I tell you, Professor, he's got 'em _all_ skinned!" Billings enthused.

The remark provoked a contemptuous sniff.

"Undoubtedly, that being the proper condition preliminary to comparative anatomical study," said the professor loftily. "Then the physical resemblance to a man becomes startling. I have identified every a.n.a.logy with man except the beautiful phenomenon of the beating of the frog heart twenty-four hours after separation from the body--the living body, sir. Experiment upon the living human specimen is necessary for confirmation of the h.o.m.ologous structure of the two hearts, however.

This I have not done--not yet."

He spoke gloomily. I looked at Billings blankly but I found Billings was looking at me the same way.

Every once in a while he had been lifting the pajamas. He would cough and open his mouth, but just then the professor would start off again.

Once Billings, with an awfully savage expression, shook his fist at our visitor's back and danced up and down upon the rug.

"The indifference, not to say prejudice, of the public upon the matter of human vivisection is heartrending," went on the professor sadly.

"Sir, I have advertised in the 'help wanted' columns of the daily press, and have interviewed scores without arousing one spark of ambition or awakening one thrill of grat.i.tude over the opportunity offered to a.s.sist me in the investigation of scientific phenomena. I pleaded, sir; I reproached; I even showed them the demonstration upon the frog. Did I move them? Were they affected, do you think?"

I shook my head sympathetically. Seemed the safe thing to do.

"A lot of pikers, by George!" said Billings with an air of indignation.

"Must have been shameless!"

"Deuced indifferent," I ventured. "I should have been regularly cut up."

"Ah! of course you would," cried the professor, lifting another pinch.

"There speaks the intelligent devotee of science! But did they see it that way? Not at all, sir; they were only indifferent and ungrateful--they were rude and--ah--boisterous! One savage primate a.s.saulted me with his bare knuckles. A blow, gentlemen, a blow from the boasted family of anthropina!"

"Beastly outrage, Professor," growled Billings. "Leave it to me; I know a chap who's got a pull with the police commissioner, and I'll just tip him off, by George. It's no matter what family they are or how much they boasted. It'll be the hurry wagon and the cooler for them, eh, d.i.c.ky?"

He gestured to me wildly, nodding his head like a man with the what's-it-name dance.

"Deuced good idea. Awful rotters, I say," was my comment.