choked them off."

"How?"

"Well, by his insufferable rudeness and impossible behavior.
There was poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent
a message: `The President of the Zoological Institute presents
his compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a
personal favor if he would do them the honor to come to their
next meeting.' The answer was unprintable."

"You don't say?"

"Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: `Professor
Challenger presents his compliments to the President of the
Zoological Institute, and would take it as a personal favor if he
would go to the devil.'"

"Good Lord!"

"Yes, I expect that's what old Wadley said. I remember his wail
at the meeting, which began: `In fifty years experience of
scientific intercourse----' It quite broke the old man up."

"Anything more about Challenger?"

"Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a
nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take
serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye.
I'm a frontiersman from the extreme edge of the Knowable, and I feel