"Ever since these new glands have been in full working order," he said, "I can't help feeling that others ought to be given an opportunity of regaining their youth. There must be hundreds of old men like myself who are still looking backwards in the way I used to: Ah! if only I had my life to live over again! It's the saddest, the most wistful cry in the world, George--that 'might-have-been!' You can't appreciate it at your age, with your eyes on the future. But picture yourself when you are seventy--seventy-five--eighty--always gazing backwards. There's no tragedy in life until you're old--and then it's the eternal tragedy of that might-have-been! I've lived through it all. I know. . . . The time I must have spent just sitting . . . and thinking. . . . Always the same refrain. Might have been! . . . Might have been! . . ." His gaze was directed towards the fire now--that strange picture-factory of the past and the future--and I could see that he was very deeply moved. "When I spoke of treasure hunting just now you probably thought of hidden chests of jewels and coins, of tattered and torn scraps of paper with complicated directions and cabalistic signs written on them--all that paraphernalia of fictitious adventure. . . . As if gold were the most important thing in life!" "It's handy at times," I commented. "Would my fortune be of any value to me if I were dead?" "No! . . . I believe that it serves no useful purpose in the next world." He chuckled to himself. "So you come to the basic fact that the greatest 'treasure' I've found so far has been . . ." "By Jove!" I exclaimed. "You mean _Glands_!" "I do! I'm going gland-hunting!" He allowed time for the announcement to penetrate into my startled brain. ". . . Gorillas?" I asked, at last. "Yes . . . !" "It's absurd! You couldn't get enough of them to do any good. You might shoot half-a-dozen in a whole year, and . . ." "Who said 'shoot'? I want them _alive_, man, not dead!" "Have you ever read anything about gorillas?" I asked, quietly. "A great deal during the last few weeks. They're easily the most ferocious and terrifying beasts in the world. Du Chaillu says that the gorilla is the monarch of the African forest--that no other animal on earth dare face it when it is enraged. Practically every game hunter of any standing agrees on this point. Even a man armed with a modern gun runs grave risks in an encounter with a gorilla. If the bullet misses . . ." Gran'pa shrugged his shoulders. "And yet you stand there," I said, "and tell me that you intend _capturing_ them!" "That's the whole charm of the thing. We have to devise some method, George, of not only getting them in large quantities, but of getting them alive and well. Every gorilla killed will represent the death sentence of some human being--the loss of a new lease of life. That's a terrible thought, George. It means a very great responsibility. . . ."