‘Don’t stop sewin’, dad.’
‘Ah, you young scamp, you’re eager to git inter yer new pair, I can see. Gosh, but the women, they’re hunky.’
‘What like’s the streets, dad?’
‘It’s a cur’ous thing, but you don’t seem to take so much interest in the women as I’d hev expected, sonny ... I reckon you were in the habit, before I caught you, of sorter climbin’ out with gals of your own species among the banyan-trees down away in Java; and you don’t set much store by other kinds. That’ll be another p’int for the lecture.... Think what a man I’ll be over in England, sonny; I’ll be top o’ the tree over thar, you’ll be proud to know me. I’ll be flyin’ around the town in a plug hat an’ silver-topped cane, noddin’ an’ affable howdy to my multitudinous friends from the top of a tramcar. “Who’s that?” people will say. “Why, don’t you know? That’s the scientific man who foun’ the Missin’ Link.”’
‘Missin’ ... Missin’ what, dad?’
‘The Missin’ Link.’
‘What’s the ... Missin’ Link?’
‘Wahl, I should smile! Ef I hedn’t clean forgotten to tell you. It’s all in the Boss’s letter. Why—you’re the Missin’ Link, sonny!’
‘What’s that, anyway?’
‘Wahl, sonny, it means a sort o’ monkey that isn’t quite an ornary sort o’ monkey ... kinder, sorter.... Wahl, as you might say, sonny, partly almost more like a man.’