In Search of the Unknown | Page 2

the day, in
dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services
as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers, snarers,
and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at exorbitant
rates.
To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten
coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising
refusals--of course, first submitting all such letters, together with my
replies, to Professor Farrago.

One day towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx
Park to return to town, Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department,
called out to me that Professor Farrago wanted to see me a moment; so
I put my pipe into my pocket again and retraced my steps to the
temporary, wooden building occupied by Professor Farrago, general
superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was
sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies submitted for
approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me
with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience,
annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology.
"Now, here's a letter," he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a sheet
of paper impaled on a file--"a letter that I suppose you remember." He
disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me.
"Oh yes," I replied, with a shrug; "of course the man is mistaken--or--"
"Or what?" demanded Professor Farrago, tranquilly, wiping his glasses.
"--Or a liar," I replied.
After a silence he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the letter to
him again, and I did so with a contemptuous tolerance for the writer,
who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very stupid
swindler. I said as much to Professor Farrago, but, to my surprise, he
appeared to waver.
"I suppose," he said, with his near-sighted, embarrassed smile, "that
nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would throw that letter
aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool?"
"In my opinion," said I, "he's one or the other."
"He isn't--in mine," said the professor, placidly.
"What!" I exclaimed. "Here is a man living all alone on a strip of rock
and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to send
somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn't exist!"

"How do you know," asked Professor Farrago, "that the bird in
question does not exist?"
"It is generally accepted," I replied, sarcastically, "that the great auk has
been extinct for years. Therefore I may be pardoned for doubting that
our correspondent possesses a pair of them alive."
"Oh, you young fellows," said the professor, smiling wearily, "you
embark on a theory for destinations that don't exist."
He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the
imagery that made him smile.
"Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a
stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to--do you?"
Rather red in the face, I said: "Don't you believe the great auk to be
extinct?"
"Audubon saw the great auk."
"Who has seen a single specimen since?"
"Nobody--except our correspondent here," he replied, laughing.
I laughed, too, considering the interview at an end, but the professor
went on, coolly:
"Whatever it is that our correspondent has--and I am daring to believe
that it is the great auk itself--I want you to secure it for the society."
When my astonishment subsided my first conscious sentiment was one
of pity. Clearly, Professor Farrago was on the verge of dotage--ah, what
a loss to the world!
I believe now that Professor Farrago perfectly interpreted my thoughts,
but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a chair up
beside his desk--there was nothing to do but to obey, and this fool's
errand was none of my conceiving.

Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized
the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing no
margin for a successful termination to the expedition.
"Never mind that," said the professor. "What I want you to do is to get
those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take?"
"None," I replied, bluntly; "it's a useless expense, unless there is
something to bring back. If there is I'll wire you, you may be sure."
"Very well," said Professor Farrago, good-humoredly, "you shall have
all the assistance you may require. Can you leave to-night?"
The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded, half-sulkily, aware
of his amusement.
"So," I said, picking up my hat, "I am to start north to find a place
called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who
possesses, among other household utensils, two extinct great auks--"
We were both laughing by