"From the Zoogeographical point of view, Celebes is unequalled in importance, having the strangest fauna almost of any island on the face of the globe. Then there's 'Wallace's Line,'" I said, being purposely obscure.
The Caledonian said nought but "looked hurt." It was so obvious that he didn't know, and it was so obvious that I knew that he didn't know, that after my farcical truculence I expected the tension to dissolve in laughter. Yet it is hard for a Caledonian to say "God be merciful to me, ignorant devil that I am." So I pursued him with more information about "Wallace's Line," with an insouciant air, as much as to say, "Wallace's Line of course you heard discussed before you were breached."
"Some do say, you know, that the Line is 'all my eye and Betty Martin,' e.g., R——."
This gave him his first opportunity of finding his feet in this perilously deep water. So he said promptly, eager to seem knowledgeable with an intelligent rejoinder:
"As! yes, R—— is an authority on Fishes."
I assented. "At the last meeting of the British Ass. he tore the idea to shreds."
The drowning Caledonian seized at any straw:
"Fishes, however, are not of paramount importance in cases of geographical distribution, are they?"
I knew he was thinking of marine fishes, but I did not illumine him, and merely said:
"Oh! yes, of very great importance," at which he looked still more "hurt," decamped in silence and left me conqueror of the field but without the spoils of victory: it was impossible to bring him to say "I do not know"—four mono-syllables was all I wanted from the man who for months past has been lecturing me on all things from Music and the Drama to Philosophy, Painting and—Insects.