"And to think that I paid ten dollars to get them here," reflected the Codfish. "Science can go hang in the future. Here," to the driver of the wagon, "take this blooming box of bones away somewhere and lose it forever."
"It'll take five dollars to lose it right," said the driver, who with his two assistants, had hung around, grinning broadly at the discomfiture of the friend of science.
"It's worth five to have it lost," said the Codfish as he went into his pocket for the necessary bill, "and if I ever see it or you again, beware of your life."
"We'll take it to the soap factory, eh?"
"No chance," said the Codfish gloomily. "The bones are not old enough for the Museum and too old for the factory. Eat them if you want to, only get rid of them somehow. I'm off," and he strode out to High street in a rage. But the Codfish had the newspaper man's sense, and that night wrote an article for his paper which explained that the find was only "semiprehistoric, and as such did not have the value that it was first supposed to have in spite of the authority of the first testimony."
The Codfish did not know till later that his prehistoric stories netted him less than nothing, for he was docked ten thousand words by the News board for handing in an article which contained so much misinformation.
In such ways do the Fates trip up even unselfish friends of science.