Even the God of Omar shrank into insignificance by the side of ours. "I'm sorry for that waiter," whispered Gran'pa to me. "But I'm sorrier for those gorillas. We have them like that!" He took up a crisp roll of bread and broke it in two. "There's a vast difference between a tame waiter and a wild African gorilla," I pointed out, thinking of some of the gruesome accounts I had been reading that morning. "Give me the gorilla!" laughed Gran'pa. "Much more intelligent and useful. It could fetch and carry every bit as well as that man; eh, Stringer?" Stringer nodded and went on eating. He looked as if he had a weight on his mind. Like all great men, he seemed to hold himself a little aloof from his fellow creatures. Possibly, his soul was too busy at the switchboard of his mental machinery to notice external trifles. I pictured it dashing perspiringly up and down the corridors of his brain, pulling first this lever and then that--turning on the various currents required to subdue his weaker brethren. And yet he was not all soul. His colossal appetite dispelled any such illusion as that. He ate ravenously, quickly, and a trifle piggishly. He also kept a watchful eye on the wine bottle. When we had finished, Gran'pa tipped the waiter twice as much as usual--conscience money! "How do you feel?" he asked, gently. The poor, exhausted wretch looked startled and puzzled for a moment, as if someone had suddenly probed into one of the most cherished secrets of his life. "Like . . . that!" he gasped, dropping his hands limply to his side. "But why did you hurry so much?" persisted Gran'pa, in an undertone. "Dunno, sir! Couldn't help it. . . . It was like as if something had 'old of me." "Where?" ". . . Right down . . . inside!" Gran'pa chuckled to himself. "You'll feel better in the morning," he said. "Don't let it worry you. You'll be able to take it quietly again to-morrow night. . . ." We emerged into the street and commenced walking towards Piccadilly Circus. "_That's the stuff to give 'em!_" quoted Gran'pa. "It's very wonderful, George! The sort of thing one can't explain. Call it Animal Magnetism, Hypnotism, 'Fluence' or what you like, and you're still no nearer. It must be a _force_, as inexplicable and yet as undefinable as the ability some men have of immediately making friends with other men or even animals. The thing is, can we turn it on the gorilla? Can we call him in his own language, or entice him into the magnetic field in some other way, and then suddenly take all the wind out of his sails and render him inert and submissive?" "I don't think you realize the kind of brute we're up against," I said. "It's the most ferocious and dangerous animal in the jungle. It is absolutely fearless, and it possesses the strength of half-a-dozen men at least. What chance will a parrot cry and a hypnotic 'glare' have against such a creature?"