"That's what we're going to find out. The gorilla has many advantages over us, but, in the end, we have _the_ advantage--a human brain. To begin with, I'll guarantee that I could disguise myself so that no gorilla could tell me from one of its own kind at half-a-dozen yards away." I forewent the obvious and flippant retort to this. I said, instead: "Your idea is to dress up Mr. Stringer as a sort of hypnotic super-gorilla?" "Precisely!" Stringer was trotting along by our side as though quite oblivious of the fact that he would play such a vital part in our plans. He certainly listened to our talk, but he listened as if only out of mere politeness. He made no comment and gave no sign of emotion. Sphinx-like--Old-Bill-like--he was one of the most uncanny specimens of humanity I had met. I don't think he had spoken a dozen words during the whole evening. Was he brooding over a secret sorrow; or was he merely taciturn and unsociable? At Piccadilly Circus, we took the Tube to Paddington Station and, about half-an-hour later, were _en route_ to Bristol. It was then that Stringer spoke. "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I think I'll have a little nap. I'm very tired." "Do so by all means!" answered Gran'pa. We had the carriage to ourselves, and Stringer immediately stretched himself out on the opposite seat, placed my suit-case under his head and dropped off to sleep as easily and naturally as a child. "Queer chap . . ." whispered Gran'pa. "But what can one expect? A man with a power like his must be abnormal." "Yes. . . . I suppose so!" "He simply doesn't know what fear is. He handled that gorilla and chimpanzee at the Zoo like a mother of ten managing her latest arrival. And yet he'd never seen anything bigger than a pet monkey before." I was astonished--but refused to show it in front of Gran'pa. "How did you discover him?" I asked. "Advertised, and then wrote and arranged an interview. He used to be a lion-tamer. At the same time, I fixed up with those menagerie people at Bristol to allow me a few minutes intercourse with their gorilla. They have what is supposed to be one of the finest specimens in Europe; and, what is better still, it's wild. Every attempt at taming it has proved useless." "A sort of Alfred the Second," I suggested. "By jove!" he murmured, reminiscently. "It seems twenty or thirty years ago since . . . that affair. To tell the truth, I can't recollect much about the brute. Was it very ferocious?" I remembered how it had torn at the bars of its cage in a mad endeavor to get at Gran'pa, and how it had nearly removed a handful of his beard. "It is not seemly that we should speak ill of the departed," I said, "but Alfred was the most vindictive-looking and malicious-minded beast I've ever seen."