We emerged into the street and commenced walking towards Piccadilly Circus.
"That's the stuff to give 'em!" quoted Gran'pa. "It's very wonderful, George! The sort of thing one can't explain. Call it Animal Magnetism, Hypnotism, 'Fluence' or what you like, and you're still no nearer. It must be a force, as inexplicable and yet as undefinable as the ability some men have of immediately making friends with other men or even animals. The thing is, can we turn it on the gorilla? Can we call him in his own language, or entice him into the magnetic field in some other way, and then suddenly take all the wind out of his sails and render him inert and submissive?"
"I don't think you realize the kind of brute we're up against," I said. "It's the most ferocious and dangerous animal in the jungle. It is absolutely fearless, and it possesses the strength of half-a-dozen men at least. What chance will a parrot cry and a hypnotic 'glare' have against such a creature?"
"That's what we're going to find out. The gorilla has many advantages over us, but, in the end, we have the advantage—a human brain. To begin with, I'll guarantee that I could disguise myself so that no gorilla could tell me from one of its own kind at half-a-dozen yards away."
I forewent the obvious and flippant retort to this. I said, instead:
"Your idea is to dress up Mr. Stringer as a sort of hypnotic super-gorilla?"
"Precisely!"
Stringer was trotting along by our side as though quite oblivious of the fact that he would play such a vital part in our plans. He certainly listened to our talk, but he listened as if only out of mere politeness. He made no comment and gave no sign of emotion. Sphinx-like—Old-Bill-like—he was one of the most uncanny specimens of humanity I had met. I don't think he had spoken a dozen words during the whole evening. Was he brooding over a secret sorrow; or was he merely taciturn and unsociable?
At Piccadilly Circus, we took the Tube to Paddington Station and, about half-an-hour later, were en route to Bristol.
It was then that Stringer spoke.