"Suspendenda omnia naso," I nodded; "tarde sed tute. When I think aloud in Latin it means that I am deeply troubled. Suum quemque scelus agitat. Do you get me, Professor? I'm sorry I attempted to be sportive with this terrible woman. The curse of my scientific career has been periodical excesses of frivolity. See where this frolicsome impulse has landed me!—super abyssum ambulans. Trahit sua quemque voluptas; transeat in exemplum! She means to let us go to our destruction on this mammoth frappé affair."
But Dr. Fooss was optimistic:
"I tink she iss alretty herselluf by dot Baffin Land ge-gone," he said. "I tink she has der bait ge-swallowed. Ve vait; ve see; und so iss it ve know."
"But why hasn't she stopped our preparations?" I demanded. "If she wants all the glory herself why does she permit us to incur this expense in getting ready?"
"No mans can to know der vorkings of der mental brocess by a Frauenzimmer," said Dr. Fooss, wagging his head.
The suspense became nerve-racking; we were obliged to pack our camping kits; and it began to look as though we would have either to sail the next morning or to resign from the Bronx Park Zoölogical Society, because all the evening papers had the story in big type—the details and objects of the expedition, the discovery of the herd of mammoths in cold storage, the prompt organization of an expedition to secure this unparalleled deposit of prehistoric mammalia—everything was there staring at us in violent print, excepting only the name of the discoverer and the names of those composing the field expedition.
"She means to betray us after we have sailed," said Lezard, greatly depressed. "We might just as well resign now before this hoax explodes and bespatters us. We can take our chances in vaudeville or as lecturing professors with the movies."
I thought so, too, in point of fact we all had gathered in my study to write out our resignations, when there came a knock at the door and Dr. Daisy Delmour walked in.
Oddly enough I had not before met Dr. Delmour personally; only formal written communications had hitherto passed between us. My idea of her had doubtless been inspired by the physical and intellectual aberrations of her chief; I naturally supposed her to be either impossible and corporeally redundant, or intellectually and otherwise as weazened as last year's Li-che nut.
I was criminally mistaken. And why Lezard, who knew her, had never set me right I could not then understand. I comprehended later.