'The Prehistoric Society, Great Saurian Street,' answered Nevill. 'It's a trifle over an eighteenpenny fare, and he'll offer me the eighteenpence and argufy for an hour. They gets no money out of them societies, and they won't let a man live. If they gets no money out of them societies, why can't they stop at home, and give a man a chance of picking up a living out of reasonable fares?' No conversation occurred in the cab. Each man was too much occupied with thought. When they alighted at the tall gaunt doorway in Great Saurian Street, Nevill handed the cabman half-a-crown. The man touched his hat and drove away, thinking, 'They must be ignorant foreigners or fools. I'll take my oath they don't belong to them sciences. There's nothing pays worse than science, not even hospitals.' Osborne and Nevill found a number of men, none of whom was young, and most of whom were beyond middle life, gathered in a room of modest dimensions. Down the centre of the room ran a large leather-covered table, liberally supplied with pens, ink, and paper. Scattered round the room were comfortably upholstered chairs. The walls were covered from ceiling to floor with glass-cases, crammed with daggers, bones, utensils, shields, arrowheads, spearheads, teeth, flasks of pottery and basins of stone, bone needles and brass knives. The proceedings of the meeting had not yet begun. Some of the members were looking into the cases, some chatting in groups, some writing at the table. All were serious. There was no laughter. The murmur of a guttural minor chord filled the room. Osborne whispered to Nevill, when they had taken their seats, 'What an unintellectual-looking set of men! Can these be the members of a learned society? They amaze me.' 'There are, I suppose, some visitors besides ourselves here to-day. But I daresay the bulk of men present are members. You can know the members as they enter by their nodding to the officials. Let us see if we can't pick up someone who will give us a little information. Stop, here's a civil-looking man sitting with his back to the window; let us go across to him and try if he will not tell us something of those around us.' They moved over to the window. Nevill took the chair next the man he had indicated; Osborne took a chair next to Nevill. When they had been seated awhile, Nevill turned to the stranger and said,-- 'I beg your pardon, sir.' The man bowed and smiled blandly, encouragingly. 'We, my friend and I, are strangers in London. We are the guests of this learned society to-day, and we know little of its scope and nothing of its members; and we have dared to hope that if you are not engaged in something more useful, you might give us a little information.'