A scene of bustle had sprung up about me. An excited and larger crowd of villagers had assembled.
The big cage containing Mimmie and Horace was lowered to the track side. They were two of the finest animals of their type I have ever looked upon.
Horace was transferred to the single cage and its strong door doubly padlocked upon him. The mule team drew up with the wagon.
“Here, Will,” said the doctor to the half-wit, “climb into the wagon. We’re going before we get wet.” The doctor appeared highly elated.
Simple Will, who had stood by as if in a stupor, swung his heavy body up behind the gorilla’s cage.
No sooner had the wagon drawn out of sight than the heavens seemed to loosen in wrath. Rain fell in torrents, driving the spectators in a wild rush for shelter. As I reached the hotel, the water dripping from my drenched garments, the storm increased its fury. All that day it rained—and the next.
As I lay on my bed that night and listened to the roar of wind and rain beating upon the roof and window panes, my mind kept drifting to the inmates of Thornsdale place—the queer doctor, Simple Will and his ward, Horace, the gigantic gorilla.
III.
IT WAS three days later that I learned Dr. Calgroni had wired to New York, and on the next morning an exceptionally well-dressed stranger, whose goatee, bearing and satchel smacked of a medical man, stepped off the train.
Espying me, he asked: