He found himself, unbound, on a floor of rubber-like texture and on rising to look around, perceived that he was in a cell with no visible exit, whose walls were formed by a heavy criss-crossed grating of some red metal. It was a little more than ten feet square; in the center a seat with curving outlines rose from the floor, apparently made of the same rubbery material as the floor itself. A metallic track ended just in front of the seat; following back, his eye caught the outline of a kind of lectern, now pushed back against the wall of the cell, with spaces below the reading flat and handles attached. Against the back wall of the cell stood a similar device, but larger and without any metal track. Beside it two handles dangled from the wall on cords of flexible wire. This was all his brief glance told him about the confines of his new home. Looking beyond it, he saw that he was in one of a row of similar cells, stretching back in both directions. In front of the row of cells was a corridor along which ran a brightly-burnished metal track, and this was lined by another row of cells on the farther side. The cell at Sherman's right was empty, but he observed that the one on the left had a tenant--a metal man, like himself in all respects and yet--somehow unlike. He stepped over to the grating that separated them. "What is this place, anyway?" he inquired. His neighbor, who had been sitting in the rubber chair, turned toward him a round and foolish face with a long, naked upper lip, and burst into a flood of conversation of which Sherman could not understand one word. He held up his hand. "Wait a minute, partner," he said. "Go slow. I don't get you." The expression on the fellow's face changed to one of wonderment. He made another effort at conversation, accompanying it with gestures. "Wait," said the aviator, "_Sprechen Sie Deutsch?... Francais?... Habla Espanol?..._ No? Dammit what does the guy talk? I don't know any Italian--Spaghetti, macaroni, Mussolini!" No use. The metal face remained blankly uninspired. Well, there is one thing men of all races have in common. Sherman went through the motions of drawing from his pocket a phantom cigarette, applying to it an imaginary match, and blowing the smoke in the air. It is impossible for a man whose forehead is composed of a series of lateral metal bands to frown. If it were the other would have done so. Then comprehension appeared to dawn on him. He stepped across to his lectern, and _with his toes_, pulled the bottom slide open, extracted from it a round rubber container and reaching through the bars, handed it to Sherman. The aviator understood the difference that had puzzled him in the beginning. Instead of the graceful back-sweeping curve that sets a man's head vertical with his body, this individual had the round-curved neck and low-hung head of the ape. CHAPTER XII The Poisoned Paradise