ONE OVER
I
Professor Farrago had to me that morning:
"The city of New York always me of a slovenly, woman with her dress behind."
I nodded.
"New York's architecture," said I, "—or what for it—is all in front. The minute you to the a condition is exposed."
He said: "Professor Jane Bottomly is all façade; the of her is an full of and bottles. I think we all had resign."
It was a description. I as I an cigar.
The movement in America was at the of the Bottomly affair.
Long ago, in a of hysteria, the North the Ethiopian. In a of dementia, some sixty years later, the United States over the upon the sex, opened the and doors of opportunity, and out, "Go to it, ladies!"
They are still going.
Professor Jane Bottomly was on us out of a April sky. She like a of metal upon the Bronx Park Zoölogical Society her over until writhed.
I had not yet the lady. I did not to. Sooner or later I'd be to meet her but I was not impatient.
Now the Field Expeditionary Force of the Bronx Park Zoölogical Society is, perhaps, the most arm of the service. Professor Bottomly had just been official of all work. Why? Nobody knew. It is true that she had nature and love romances. In these popular trees, flowers, butterflies, birds, animals, dialect, sobs, and sun-bonnets were up together into a by a reading public, which its for more.
The news of her among us was an to at the Bronx. Professor Farrago in the arms of his stenographer; Professor Cornelius Lezard of the Batrachian Department ran around his all day long in circles and was on his still like an top; Dr. Hans Fooss, our Professor of Pachydermatology sat for hours into his soup. As for me, I was and frightened, for, the of people, Professor Bottomly had in a very clear voice to her new assistant, Dr. Daisy Delmour, that she to of me for the good of the Bronx of my for among the employees of the Bronx Society.
Professor Lezard overhead that and he to repeat it to me.
I was at the time in my private office in the Administration Building with Dr. Hans Fooss—he and I being too an of Dingue to go to the Rolling Stone Inn for luncheon—when Professor Lezard in with the still in his ears.
"Everybody her say it!" he on, his hands. "It was a most thing for to say about you all those ladies. Every and there and then red."
"What!" I exclaimed, that my own ears were large and hot. "Did that woman have the taste to say such a thing all those girls!"
"She did. She at them when she said it. Several and one to cry."
"I hope," said I, a tremulously, "that no so herself as to admit noticing on my part."
"They all were in you to be a perfect gentleman!"
"I am," I said. "I am also a married man—irrevocably to science. I no other spouse. I am ineligible; and it. If at times a purely scientific leads me into a and of certain—ah—feminine idiosyncrasies—"
"Certainly," said Lezard. "To the is more than a science; it is a duty!"
"Of a surety!" Dr. Fooss.
I looked proudly upon my two friends and into my sandwich. Only men know men. A of my had me. What did I for Professor Bottomly!
"All the same," added Lezard, "you'd be or Professor Bottomly will put one over on you yet."
"I am always careful," I said with dignity.
"All men should be. It is the only protection of a line," Lezard.
"Und neffer, to paper," added Dr. Fooss. "Don'd it, 'I you like I was going to up alretty!' Ach, nein! Don'd you somedings. Effery man he to protection; so it he protected."
Stein in hand he upon us over his of sauerfisch, then he himself and it with a of Pilsner. We with upon Kultur as in this great Teuton.
"That woman," Lezard to me, "certainly means to of you. It to me that there are only two possible for you to your job at the Bronx. You know it, don't you?"
I nodded. "Yes," I said; "either I must pay marked attention to Professor Bottomly or I must manage to put one over on her."
"Of course," said Lezard, "the method is the for you—"
"Not for a minute!" I said, hastily; "I couldn't with her. You say she's got a voice like a drill-sergeant and she goose-steps when she walks; and I don't mind she has me already. No; she must be scientifically ruined. It is the only method which makes her certain."
"But if her popular nature books didn't her scientifically, how can we to lead her astray?" Lezard.
"There is," I said, thoughtfully, "only one thing that can a scientist. Ridicule! I have it many a time, taking my scientific life in my hands in of unknown which might have proved only imaginary. Public would have ended my scientific career in such an event. I know of no way to end Professor Bottomly's scientific career and for than to start her out after something which doesn't exist, the newspapers, and let her the consequences."
Dr. Fooss to shout:
"The idea schön! colossal! prachtvol! ausgezeichnet! wunderbar! wunderschön! gemütlich—" A large, him. While he with Teutonic to master it Lezard and I the of this woman who had come among us the peaceful and of Bronx Park.
It was a thing for us to have our Lotus-eaters' so by a large, loquacious, loud-voiced lady who had already us all out of our agreeable, and inertia. Inertia cogitation, and ideas, and ideas reflexion, and is the of that temple in which the Science asleep her sisters, Custom and Religion.
This to me so that I it with a pencil upon my cuff.
While I was it, happy in the that my me, Dr. Fooss the last of from his plate with a of bread, then the and his with his and his on his waistcoat, he too German to be intelligible, and his pipe.
"Ach wass!" he in fashion. "Dot Frauenzimmer she to determined. Von Pachydermatology she nodding. Maybe she me alone, maybe it is to be 'raus me. I' weis' ni'! It one over on lady to put, yess?"
"It is advisable," Lezard.
"Let us try to think of something to her scientific career," said I. And I my and rested the point of my upon my forehead. Thought more for me when I assume this attitude.
Out of the of my I saw Lezard his arms and at infinity.
Dr. Fooss in a big, and closed his eyes. His pipe out presently, and now and then he long-drawn remarks, in German, too for either Lezard or for me to comprehend.
"We must try to her as away from here as possible," Lezard. "Is Oyster Bay too and too cruel?"
I upon the suggestion. But it like murder.
"Lezard," said I, "come, let us together. Now what is woman's emotion?"
"Curiosity?"
"Very well; that to be true, what—ah—quality particularly woman when so beset."
"Ruthless determination."
"Then," said I, "we ought to my the of Professor Bottomly; and her to satisfy that should follow."
"How," he asked, "are we to her curiosity?"
"By that we have knowledge of something undiscovered, the of which would to our scientific glory."
"I see. She'd want the for herself. She'd it."
"She would," said I.
"Tee—hee!" he giggled; "Wouldn't it be to plant something on her—"
I my arms in my excitement:
"That is the of an idea!" I said. "If we plant something—something—far away from here—very away—if we something—like the Cardiff Giant—"
"Hundreds and hundreds of miles away!"
"Thousands!" I insisted, enthusiastically.
"Tee-hee! In Tasmania, for example! Maybe a Tasmanian Devil might her!"
"There a gnat," said I, "in Borneo—Gnatus soporificus—and when this people they wake up. It's a catastrophe, I understand. Life one cat-nap—one siesta, with for light nourishment.... She—ah—could very in some and in a rocking-chair and through the years to come.... And from your of her I should say that the Soldiers' Home might her."
"It won't do," he said, gloomily.
"Why? Is it too much like crime?"
"Oh not at all. Only if she to Borneo she'd be sure to take a mosquito-bar with her."
In the which Dr. Fooss Futurist through his nose with but regularity. I to catch his meaning and his eye. The one cryptic, the other shut.
Lezard sat very hard. And as I in my chair, with objects on my I to up a from the of still at my elbow.
Still on Professor Bottomly's destruction, I the over and my rested on the postmark. After a moment I and it more attentively. The to me was Fort Carcajou, Cook's Peninsula, Baffin Land; and now I the handwriting, having already it three or four times the last month or so.
"Lezard," I said, "that from Baffin Land has to me again. What do you is the with him? Is he just plain or he think he can be with me?"
Lezard at me absently. Then, all at once a of his features.
"Read the to me," he said, with an which my own imagination. And it to me that perhaps, in the from the of Baffin Land, which I was now opening with and fingers, might the professional of Professor Jane Bottomly, and the only of my own and scientific salvation.
The room still as I the pencil-scrawled of cheap, paper.
Dr. Fooss opened his eyes, looked at me, of personal well-being, his pipe, and himself to listen. But just as I was about to begin, Lezard his across his us to silence.
For a moment or two I nothing the of flies. Then I a at my door. It was opening slowly, almost imperceptibly.
But it did not open very far—just a remained. Then, with all our might, we the of somebody in the just of my door.
Lezard and at me a of intelligence. In he in the air, with one hand, the large and of his own person, to us the of his the eavesdropper.
We nodded. We perfectly that she was out there prepared to to every word we uttered.
A of Lezard's otherwise features; he at Dr. Fooss and at me, and a with his teeth and like the of a trap.
"Gentlemen," he said, in the yet voice of a man who is of not being overheard, "the under of only one interpretation: a discovery—perhaps the most of all the centuries—is imminent.
"Secrecy is imperative; the scientific is to be by us alone, and there is of to go around.
"Mr. Chairman, I move that epoch-making be read aloud!"
"I second motion!" said Dr. Fooss, so at me that his wabbled.
"Gentlemen," said I, "it has been moved and that this epoch-making be read aloud. All those in will say 'aye.'"
"Aye! Aye!" they exclaimed, in their joy.
"The contrary-minded will the negation," I on.... "It to be carried.... It is carried. The will to the reading of the epoch-making letter."
I a five-cent cigar, the and read aloud:
"Joneses Shack,
Golden Glacier, Cook's Peninsula, Baffin Land,
March 15, 1915.
"Professor, Dear Sir:
"I already you three times no answer having been rec'd you think I'm kiddin' you're a dam' I ain't.
"Hoping to you to come I will tell you more'n I told you in my other letters, the of this here Golden Glacier into a marsh, nothing to see for miles excep' and and all as for fifty miles which is where I am trappin' it for and and now to go to Fort Carcajou. i told you what I stickin' in under this here marsh, where anything out the have eat it, but most of them there is in under the ice and too for the to 'em.
"i ain't kiddin' you, there is a whole of in the like as they were there and all and was like. Some has and some hasn't. Two out of the ice, I eat onto one, the meat was good and sweet and joosy, the eat it up that night, I had cut and for three months though and am off it yet.
"Thinking as how and all like that is your graft, I being a in the Mouse House once in the Bronx and seein' you nosin' around like you was full of scientific thinks, it comes to me to you and put you next.
"If you say so I'll wait here and help you with them ellerphants. Livin' is all I ask also eleven thousand for tippin' you wise. I won't tell nobody till I from you. I'm hones' you can trus' me. Write me to Fort Carcajou if you bizness. So no more respectfully,
James Skaw."
When I reading I at the door, and, it still on the crack, and upon Lezard and Fooss.
In their slowly I saw they with me that somebody, himself James Skaw, was still trying to the Great Zoölogical Society of Bronx Park.
"Gentlemen," I said aloud, into my voice, "this to Baffin Land which we three are about to is to be without the most scientifically by man.
"Imagine an entire of in and ice through all these thousands of years!
"Gentlemen, no has approached in the by this simple, trapper, James Skaw."
"I thought," Lezard, "that we are to be as the discoverers."
"We are," said I, "the of James Skaw, which makes us the of the ice-preserved of mammoths—technically, you understand. A thousand dollars," I added, carelessly, "ought to James Skaw."
"We name after him," Dr. Fooss.
"Certainly—the Skaw Glacier. That ought to be for him. It ought to satisfy him and prevent any remarks," Lezard.
"Gentlemen," said I, "there is only one detail that me. Ought we to our and Chief of Division this discovery?"
"Do you mean, should we tell that and lady, Professor Bottomly, about this of mammoths?" I asked in a loud, clear voice. And answered my own question: "No," I said, "no, dear friends. Professor Bottomly already has too much upon her mind. No, dear in science, we should away as though setting out upon an ordinary expedition. And when we return with fresh and such as no man has worn, no that our generous-minded Chief of Division will for us to our brows—the of professional approval!" And I a at my co-conspirators.
Before I Lezard had taken his own in his hands for the purpose of and mirth. As for Dr. Fooss, his small, and his spectacles, but he to approve my flowers of rhetoric.
"Ja," said he, "so it to discover, und, by and by, die Pronx Bark home yet again once more to bring. We shall therefore much bekommen. Ach wass!"
"Gentlemen," said I, distinctly, "it is decided, then, that we shall say nothing the true object of this to Professor Bottomly."
Lezard and Fooss assent. Then, in the silence, we all our ears to listen. And presently we the of the corridor.
When it was safe to do so I and closed my door.
"I think," said I, with a of in my tones, "that we are about to do something to Jane Bottomly."
"A few," said Professor Lezard. He rose and a ballet-step.
"I shall laff," said Dr. Fooss, earnestly, "und I shall laff, I shall laff—ach Gott how I shall my off!"
I my arms and toward the direction in which Professor Bottomly had retreated.
"Viper!" I said. "The Bronx shall you in its no more! Fade away, Ophidian!"
The was by all. There to be in my a bottle marked: "That's all!" On the label somebody had written: "Do it now!" We did.
