Читать «The Lost World / Затерянный мир» онлайн - страница 11

“Well?” said he, with a most insolent stare. “What now?”

I must keep up my deception for at least a little time longer, otherwise here was evidently an end of the interview.

“You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir,” said I, humbly, producing his envelope.

He took my letter from his desk and laid it out before him.

“Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are you? My general conclusions you are good enough to approve, as I understand?”

“Entirely, sir – entirely!” I was very emphatic.

“Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? Your age and appearance make your support doubly valuable. Well, at least you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna, whose gregarious grunt is, however, not more offensive than the isolated effort of the British hog.” He glared at me as the present representative of the beast.

“They seem to have behaved abominably,” said I.

“I assure you that I can fight my own battles, and that I have no possible need of your sympathy. Put me alone, sir, and with my back to the wall. G. E. C. is happiest then. Well, sir, let us do what we can to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is inexpressibly irksome to me. You had, as I have been led to believe, some comments to make upon the proposition which I advanced in my thesis.”

There was a brutal directness about his methods which made evasion difficult. I must still make play and wait for a better opening. It had seemed simple enough at a distance. Oh, my Irish wits, could they not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He transfixed me with two sharp, steely eyes. “Come, come!” he rumbled.

“I am, of course, a mere student,” said I, with a fatuous smile, “hardly more, I might say, than an earnest inquirer. At the same time, it seemed to me that you were a little severe upon Weissmann in this matter. Has not the general evidence since that date tended to – well, to strengthen his position?”

“What evidence?” He spoke with a menacing calm.

“Well, of course, I am aware that there is not any what you might call DEFINITE evidence. I alluded merely to the trend of modern thought and the general scientific point of view, if I might so express it.”

He leaned forward with great earnestness.

“I suppose you are aware,” said he, checking off points upon his fingers, “that the cranial index is a constant factor?”

“Naturally,” said I.

“And that telegony is still sub judice?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?”

“Why, surely!” I cried, and gloried in my own audacity.

“But what does that prove?” he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice.

“Ah, what indeed?” I murmured. “What does it prove?”