Suddenly I was sobbing--sobbing in loud, gulping, uncontrollable
sobs which refused to be concealed.  My companions looked at me
in surprise.  I covered my face with my hands.

"It's all right," said I.  "Only--only it _is_ such a pity!"

"You're ill, young fellah, that's what's amiss with you," said
Lord John.  "I thought you were queer from the first."

"Your habits, sir, have not mended in these three years," said
Summerlee, shaking his head.  "I also did not fail to observe
your strange manner the moment we met.  You need not waste your
sympathy, Lord John.  These tears are purely alcoholic.  The man
has been drinking.  By the way, Lord John, I called you a coxcomb
just now, which was perhaps unduly severe.  But the word reminds
me of a small accomplishment, trivial but amusing, which I used
to possess.  You know me as the austere man of science.  Can you
believe that I once had a well-deserved reputation in several
nurseries as a farmyard imitator?  Perhaps I can help you to pass
the time in a pleasant way.  Would it amuse you to hear me crow
like a cock?"

"No, sir," said Lord John, who was still greatly offended, "it
would _not_ amuse me."

"My imitation of the clucking hen who had just laid an egg was
also considered rather above the average.  Might I venture?"

"No, sir, no--certainly not."

But in spite of this earnest prohibition, Professor Summerlee
laid down his pipe and for the rest of our journey he
entertained--or failed to entertain--us by a succession of bird
and animal cries which seemed so absurd that my tears were
suddenly changed into boisterous laughter, which must have
become quite hysterical as I sat opposite this grave Professor
and saw him--or rather heard him--in the character of the
uproarious rooster or the puppy whose tail had been trodden
upon.  Once Lord John passed across his newspaper, upon the
margin of which he had written in pencil, "Poor devil!  Mad as a
hatter."  No doubt it was very eccentric, and yet the performance
struck me as extraordinarily clever and amusing.

Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me
some interminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah
which seemed to me to have neither beginning nor end.  Professor
Summerlee had just begun to chirrup like a canary, and Lord John
to get to the climax of his story, when the train drew up at
Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as the station for Rotherfield.

And there was Challenger to meet us.  His appearance was
glorious.  Not all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the
slow, high-stepping dignity with which he paraded his own
railway station and the benignant smile of condescending
encouragement with which he regarded everybody around him.  If he
had changed in anything since the days of old, it was that his
points had become accentuated.  The huge head and broad sweep of
forehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even
greater than before.  His black beard poured forward in a more
impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes, with their insolent
and sardonic eyelids, were even more masterful than of yore.

He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the
head master bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the
others and helped to collect their bags and their cylinders of
oxygen, he stowed us and them away in a large motor-car which was
driven by the same impassive Austin, the man of few words, whom
I had seen in the character of butler upon the occasion of my
first eventful visit to the Professor.  Our journey led us up a
winding hill through beautiful country.  I sat in front with the
chauffeur, but behind me my three comrades seemed to me to be
all talking together.  Lord John was still struggling with his
buffalo story, so far as I could make out, while once again I
heard, as of old, the deep rumble of Challenger and the
insistent accents of Summerlee as their brains locked in high
and fierce scientific debate.  Suddenly Austin slanted his
mahogany face toward me without taking his eyes from his
steering-wheel.

"I'm under notice," said he.

"Dear me!" said I.

Everything seemed strange to-day.  Everyone said queer, unexpected
things.  It was like a dream.

"It's forty-seven times," said Austin reflectively.

"When do you go?" I asked, for want of some better observation.
"I don't go," said Austin.

The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he
came back to it.

"If I was to go, who would look after 'im?"  He jerked his head
toward his master.  "Who would 'e get to serve 'im?"

"Someone else," I suggested lamely.

"Not 'e.  No one would stay a week.  If I was to go, that 'ouse