"A sort of Alfred the Second," I suggested.
"By jove!" he murmured, reminiscently. "It seems twenty or thirty years ago since . . . that affair. To tell the truth, I can't recollect much about the brute. Was it very ferocious?"
I remembered how it had torn at the bars of its cage in a mad endeavor to get at Gran'pa, and how it had nearly removed a handful of his beard.
"It is not seemly that we should speak ill of the departed," I said, "but Alfred was the most vindictive-looking and malicious-minded beast I've ever seen."
"Anyway, _I_ can never repay the debt I owe him . . ." mused Gran'pa. "It's strange to think that millions of years ago we severed our connection with the apes and strode upwards into manhood; and now . . . we're returning to them again to save the aged of our race."
"It's like making brothers of our first cousins," I observed.
Our conversation trickled on for some time in this speculative vein until, at last, Gran'pa said that he would follow Stringer's example.
"It's been a very busy day," he said, with a yawn. "And I'm not as young as I used to be, George. . . ."
If ever a truth sounded like an untruth, that phrase certainly did.
He made himself comfortable in the corner of the seat and was soon asleep. On the other hand, I was more wide awake than I had been for years. The whole world seemed topsy-turvy. Who would have thought, twelve months ago, that I should ever travel in the same railway carriage as a mental magnetist and a middle-aged man of ninety-five? Who could have guessed that I, George Barnett, of His Majesty's Civil Service, would ever have the opportunity of seeking fame and monkey-glands in the jungles of Africa?
For a long time I thus ruminated on the past. And then I suddenly turned to the future.
The train had stopped. I looked out of the window.
As it was eleven o'clock when we reached Bristol, we immediately made for the nearest hotel, partook of a light supper, and went to bed.
"We're being called at six-thirty sharp in the morning," said Gran'pa, as we parted on the landing. "Breakfast's at a quarter-past seven, and we reach the menagerie at eight. They leave for Gloucester at ten. Night-night!"
In five minutes I was in bed, in another ten sound asleep. I dreamt a little, but not as hideously and consistently as during the previous night; and at the appointed hour next morning I arose with a feeling of exuberant expectation. To-day, I should witness the Great Prelude to Adventure. After ten years of lingering death in a Government office the resurrection had come. I was alive!