highly educated, accustomed to refinement and society, willing to
sacrifice his best years to establish communication between man
and monkey. The baby could be well taken care of and would
suffer no deprivation. He would be happy, and think of the vast
addition he would make to science 1"
"Whew !" ejaculated Brown.
"Learn the language of monkeys," continued Harvey with an
eloquent gesture, "and you have, solved one of the problems that
has baffled the philosophers since the beginning of time, and you
have made a start in the interpretation of the language of the
other animals. I tell you, Brown, the man who does that is im
mortal."
"Hurrah !" shouted Brown.
"Wal, I don't care, he would."
"That's all right, old man ;" Harvey lapsed instantly into serious
ness ; "but unfortunately there's a very practical side to all this.
Who's going to sacrifice their offspring for the cause of science ?
Perhaps you don't appreciate the fact that the ordinary infantus,
homo parvus, needs a good deal of attention that the average
monkey wouldn't render. Take a matronly old chimpanzee, or
some spinster gorillaess, now for instance. They'd do the best
they could, but I'm afraid they wouldn't be up on wind colic and
teething. It would be putting a quod of responsibility on the es
timable old lady."
"Now, seriously, Brown, no joking, the idea captivates me posi
tively. I think we ought to act on it. I believe there is fame in
it. There's no reason why we can't immortalize ourselves."
"Whew."
"The details are exceedingly simple. Adopt a baby from the
asylum, get a couple of monkeys,----you can pick them up by the
dozen anywhere about the city, and simply let the child hear no
other talk than that of the monkeys. Nothing could be easier
than that. Here we have two rooms ; we can keep the monkeys
and the--the—child in there together. We can go in and feed them
and take pare of them, never speaking a word while we are in