"The dear might be dull. Wouldn't you better take him back to where you found him?"
"And leave him on the road? Lost? For motors to run over? How could he get out of their way? What does he know about motors?"
We admitted that he did not look modern.
"Besides, I must run to catch that next train. I've just remembered that I am due at the Melting Pot conference in town."
"Isn't there room for Emilius in the pot?" I called after her, but she was gone without waiting to be thanked.
"If ye'll put the baste in a suitcase," proposed Mary, "it's mesilf will take it over to her rooms an' lave it there."
But Young Audubon, who had been lying on the floor, examining Emilius from the tip of his tail to the snub of his snout, was enraptured,—so enraptured that the chelonian, as he called it, was pressed upon him as a free gift, regretfully declined because of certain prejudices on the part of a devoted but unscientific mother.
"I can study him almost as well over here," cheerily said Young Audubon. "Now the first thing to do is to drill a hole in his carapace."
"Carry what?"
"Upper shell, you know."