"Just take your club and poke it out of the way," the young inventor advised. "It's only waiting to be shoved."
"Then you do it, Tom. Bless my looking glass, but I don't want to go near it! If my wife could see me now she'd say it served me just right."
Mr. Damon was not a coward, but the giant iguana was not pleasant to look at. Tom, with the butt of his rifle, gave it a gentle shove, whereupon the creature scurried off through the brush as though glad to make its escape unscathed.
"I thought it was a new kind of alligator," said Mr. Damon with a sigh of relief.
"Where is it?" asked Professor Bumper, coming up at this juncture. "A new species of alligator? Let me see it!"
"It's too horrible," said Mr. Damon. "I never want to see one again. It was worse than a vampire bat!"
Notwithstanding this, when he heard that it was one of the largest sized iguanas ever seen, the professor started through the jungle after it.
"We can't take it with us if we get it," Tom called after his friend.
"We might take the skin," answered the professor. "I have a standing order for such things from one of the museums I represent. I'd like to get it. Then they are often eaten. We can have a change of diet, you see."
"We'd better follow him," said Tom to Ned. "We'll have to let the turkeys go for a while. He may get into trouble. Come on."