The professor cleared his throat and registered hesitation.
“I—ah—I do not exactly apprehend your meaning, Mr. Mackintavers. You do not speak in a financial sense, I presume?”
“Of course not. I tell you, I want to be known as a scientist! Man, I’ve got the biggest thing up my sleeve that you ever struck! Can your museum, or any other, make me famous as a scientist? That is, if I turn over a regular tenstrike?”
“Ah—that is exceedingly difficult to answer. A scientific reputation, Mr. Mackintavers, is founded upon solid bases, upon research or discoveries. If your—ah—contribution were a thing of such merit as you say, it would undoubtedly be published far and wide. Your name, naturally, would be attached to it, according as your work justified.”
“In other words,” amended Sandy, “if I turn over a complete job, I’d get full credit and publicity?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I want. I’m interested in this ethnology stuff, and I can do you sharks a whopping good turn. I want to get the credit, that’s all. Folks call me a hard-fisted old mining crab, and I want to show ’em that I’m something more.”
“A highly laudable ambition, sir. You understand, however, that what to a lay mind might appear to be a most interesting ethnological fact, to a scientist might prove well known or insufficiently supported——”
Mackintavers waved his square hand.
“This thing is all assayed and fire tested, professor, and I’m no fool. May I give you an outline of it?”