It is extraordinary that I was not in the least astounded at the easy and casual way in which Gran'pa was unfolding his plan of campaign. My initial amazement once over, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for a man to take gorilla-hunting aeroplane trips in Africa. It was as if Gran'pa had merely said: "We'll make New York our headquarters and motor over to West Point, Atlantic City and other spots of interest." For over two hours he sat there talking, joking, speculating; and every query I raised was demolished swiftly and easily. There was little doubt whatever that he had studied the matter very thoroughly. He knew the country, the climate, the facilities for obtaining guides, the habits and haunts of the gorillas, and even their "language." When I showed symptoms of unbelief at this last item of knowledge, he was evidently pleased with himself. "I've been to Garner's works for that," he said. "You must remember Garner. He was the explorer who for nearly four months lived in a wire cage in one of the African forests. He says that both the chimpanzee and the gorilla have a definite language of twenty words or more. They have vocal expressions for 'food,' 'good'--in a sort of 'Thank-you!' sense--'discomfort,' 'drink,' 'illness,' and even 'death.' Take this for instance." Gran'pa threw back his head, drew in his breath and imitated a weird animal cry, as near as possible to the exclamation: "_Ugh--h--h. . . ._" (trailing off in a long drawn aspirate sound). "That," he explained, "means 'food.'" He made a few more noises, preceded by facial contortions and deep breathing exercises--which seemed to be the necessary preliminary to this new ape language. "There's a sound, too," he explained, "by means of which they call one another. It goes like this: '?..?..?!'" (My powers of representation fail me.) "That may come in quite handy, George. Don't you think so?" "Very!" I said. "If you have it right." "I've tried it!" he laughed. "On a live ape, d'you mean? When?" "At the Zoo!" "But . . ." "I tried it on the chimpanzee--and it worked! At first, he looked as if he knew quite well what it meant, but wouldn't bother to reply. So I repeated it twice! He hesitated. Then he got up, came over to me and commenced tugging at my sleeve and making peculiar little noises in the back of his throat. Most astonishing thing I've ever seen, George. The keeper--quite an intelligent fellow--was flabbergasted. Said he'd never seen anything like it before." "You mean you actually went in the cage?" "Yes! . . . I also gave the 'alarm' signal--and what do you think the brute did!" "Heaven above knows!" "Rushed into the corner of the cage and hid himself under the straw. . . ." I was impressed. Whatever other little weaknesses Gran'pa had, he never lied, and never exaggerated.