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January, 1926

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONERS MAKE A START

The great Professor Challenger has been—very i author placed him in impossible and romantic situations in order to see hoould react to them He reacted to the extent of a libel action, an abortive appeal for suppression, a riot in Sloane Street, two personal assaults, and the loss of his position as lecturer upon Physiology at the London School of Sub-Tropical Hygiene Otherwise, the ht have been expected

But he was losing soe shoulders were a little bowed The spade-shaped Assyrian beard showed tangles of grey aressive, his smile less self-complacent, his voice as monstrous as ever but less ready to roar down all opposition Yet he was dangerous, as all around him were painfully aware The volcano was not extinct, and constant rus threatened some new explosion Life had much yet to teach hi

There was a definite date for the change which had been wrought in him It was the death of his wife That little bird of a wo man’s heart He had all the tenderness and chivalry which the strong can have for the weak By yielding everything she had won everything, as a sweet-natured, tactful woman can And when she died suddenly froered and went down He ca ruefully like the stricken boxer, and ready to carry on for many a round with Fate But he was not the same man, and if it had not been for the help and coht have never rallied from the blow She it ith clever craft, lured him into every subject which would excite his combative nature and infuriate his mind, until he lived once more in the present and not the past It was only when she saw hienerally offensive to those around him, that she felt he was really in a fair way to recovery

Enid Challenger was a reraph to herself With the raven-black hair of her father, and the blue eyes and fresh colour of her , if not beautiful, in appearance She was quiet, but she was very strong Froainst her father, or else to consent to be crushed and to becoers She was strong enough to hold her own in a gentle, elastic fashion, which bent to his moods and reasserted itself when they were past Lately she had felt the constant pressure too oppressive and she had relieved it by feeling out for a career of her own She did occasional odd jobs for the London press, and did the to be known in Fleet Street In finding this opening she had been greatly helped by an old friend of her father—and possibly of the reader—Mr Edward Malone of the Daily Gazette

Malone was still the same athletic Irishby, but life had toned hihtful ood deal when last his football-boots had been packed away for good His muscles may have wilted and his joints stiffened, but his mind was deeper and more active The boy was dead and the man was born In person he had altered little, but his moustache was heavier, his back a little rounded, and so themselves upon his brow Post-war conditions and neorld problems had left their mark For the rest he had ree in literature He was still a bachelor, though there were soht that his hold on that condition was precarious and that Miss Enid Challenger’s little white fingers could disengage it Certainly they were very good chums

It was a Sunday evening in October, and the lights were just beginning to twinkle out through the fog which had shrouded London froer’s flat at Victoria West Gardens was upon the third floor, and the mist lay thick upon the hile the low hum of the attenuated Sunday traffic rose up frohway beneath, which was outlined only by scattered patches of dull radiance Professor Challenger sat with his thick, bandy legs outstretched to the fire, and his hands thrust deeply into trouser pockets His dress had a little of the eccentricity of genius, for he wore a loose-collared shirt, a large knotted -jacket, which, with his flowing beard, gave him the appearance of an elderly and Bohemian artist On one side of him ready for an excursion, with bowl hat, short-skirted dress of black, and all the other fashionable devices hich women contrive to deforhter, while Malone, hat in hand, waited by the

“I think we should get off, Enid It is nearly seven,” said he

They riting joint articles upon the religious deno they sallied out together to saet copy for the next week’s issue of the Gazette

“It’s not till eight, Ted We have lots of time”

“Sit down, sir! Sit down!” boo at his beard as was his habit if his te anyone standing behind er, but still persistent That’s right For heaven’s sake put your hat down! You have a perpetual air of catching a train”

“That’s the journalistic life,” said Malone “If we don’t catch the perpetual train we get left Even Enid is beginning to understand that But still, as you say, there is tih”

“How far have you got?” asked Challenger