"I can't pretend to give you anything like a full account of it," Elmer returned. "I have only seen the child once. But, honestly, Herr Professor, you cannot use that brochure of yours in any future argument until you have investigated this case of young Stott. It confutes you." "I can see him, then?" Grossmann asked, frowning. In that company he could not afford to decline the challenge that had been thrown down. There were, at least, five men present who would, he believed, immediately conduct the examination on their own account, should he refuse the opportunity; men who would not fail to use their material for the demolition of that pamphlet on the type of abnormality, more particularly represented by the amazing precocity of Christian Heinecken. To the layman such an attack may seem a small matter, and likely to have little effect on such a reputation as that already won by Hugo Grossmann; and it should be explained that in the Professor's great work on "Heredity and Human Development," an essential argument was based on the absence of any considerable _progressive_ variation from the normal. Indeed it was from this premise that he developed the celebrated "variation" theory which is, now, generally admitted to have compromised the whole principle of "Natural Selection" while it has given a wonderful impetus to all recent investigations and experiments on the lines first indicated by Mendel. "I can see him, then?" asked Grossmann, with the faintly annoyed air of one who is compelled by circumstances to undertake a futile task. "Certainly, I will arrange an interview for you," Elmer replied, and went on to give an account of his own experience, an account that lost nothing in the telling. Elmer created a mild sensation in the rooms of the Royal Society that evening. II He found Challis at his house in Eaton Square the next morning, but it became evident from the outset that the plan of confounding Grossmann did not appeal to the magnate of Stoke-Underhill. Challis frowned and prevaricated. "It's a thousand to one, the child won't condescend to answer," was his chief evasion. Elmer was not to be frustrated in the development of his scheme by any such trivial excuse as that. He began to display a considerable annoyance at last. "Oh! nonsense; nonsense, Challis," he said. "You make altogether too much fuss about this prodigy of yours." "Not mine," Challis interrupted. "Take him over yourself, Elmer. Bring him out. Exhibit him. I make you a gift of all my interest in him." Elmer looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were seriously considering that proposition, and then he said, "I recognise that there are--difficulties. The child seems--er--to have a queer, morose temper, doesn't he?" Challis shook his head. "It isn't that," he said.