“They ain’t is.”
“Gone?” Roger stared, “The white rats. Gone?”
“They done extraverted.”
Roger had to study that out. He knew that the psychological word was used by analysts of human minds to indicate people whose outlook on life was normal, while introverts were shy, timid people who were afraid of life. “Extraverted” must mean that the animals had turned outward toward the world—run away, or escaped.
“But those white rats—Doctor Ryder’s—were in a cage with a trap door on top, and they’d been inoculated with cultures of a spinal disease,” cried Roger. “How do you know?”
“I was up lookin’ at ’em, and somethin’ with a hand like a ham hit me back of the ears, and when I come to, tied, them rats was evacuated. I was drug down here by a ape and tied. An’ there was somethin’ else I didn’t get a look at, behind the ape.”
Was the man crazed? It worried Roger.
But a call from Grover, upstairs, quickly told him that Potts had not been talking wildly.
“Roger,” called his cousin, “The white rats’ cage is empty!”