Nickie sat with his back to the wall of his compartment, sweltering in the hot garb of the Missing Link, drowsing and day-dreaming of beer.  He thought he was sitting in a sylvian glade, with an attendant nymph, where a cascade splashed over crystal rocks, and the cascade was beer—­all beer.

“Ello there!” said a thick voice.  Someone was shaking the bars of the cage.  “Get up and do some thin’, blarst yer eyes!  What have I paid yeh for?” continued the voice.

Tish had taken sixpence at the door, and admitted a patron without giving due warning to the exhibits.  It was a rule that the public was not to be admitted to the Museum of Marvels without proper notice being given to the company.  The precaution was necessary to obviate the chance of the Egyptian Mystic being discovered in the act of preparing onions for the stew, or engaged upon some other menial task, to the destruction of her dignity and mystery as a distinguished foreigner with supernatural powers.  Or the people might have come upon the Missing Link in heated debate with the Living Skeleton, or in the hearty enjoyment of a long beer, or possibly reading a sentimental novel.

Nickie bared the long tusks of his mask in a malignant grin, but did not stir.  He couldn’t be expected to waste his arts and graces on a common drunk.

The man rattled the bars of the cage again. “’Ello!  ’Ello!” he cried, “shake yourself up!  Le’s see what yer made of.  Get goin’.  Give us a specimen of yer arts.”

The Missing Link yawned hideously, stretching his long hairy limbs, and blinked his little eyes at the visitor.

“Tha’s not so bad,” growled the man.  “You’re a bit of an artist, anyhow, but I reckon you ain’t nothin’ t’ some of the Missin’ Links I’ve come across in my time.  I’ve been in the business myself, so you can’t monkey me, my man.”

Nickie sat up, growled in his best style, and scratched with the dull laziness of a tired ape.

“’Ere, ’ere,” cried the man, “’ere, ’ere, Bravo!  Not too rotten That’s first rate monkey business, take it from Ivo Hobbs.  Let me interdoose myself.  Mr. Mahdi.  Ivo Hobbs, late o’ Kitts and Killjammer’s Whole World Show.”

Nickie walked along the back wall of his cage two or three times with simian ungainliness, turning with a peculiar spring that Mr. Crips had learned from the Orang.

“Good enough!” said.  Ivo Hobbs.  “Good enough.  There’s no ticks on you, you’re a stoodent, I can see.  How’s the game mate?”

It was necessary to convince this beery intruder of his grievous error in taking Professor Thunder’ celebrated Missing Link, Mahdi, from the tangled jungles of Darkest Africa, for a cheap fake.  Nickie sprang to the perch with great agility, caught it with one hand, slowly drew up a leg, hooked a hind claw to the bar and hung so, blinking unconcernedly.

“What oh!” said the audience, with enthusiasm.

“That’s a bit of all right.  You’re a husker.  But there ain’t no reason for this reticence with a brother professional.  I was the bearded woman with Kitts and Kiljammer’s show for over two years, I was Shake, mate.”  The visitor thrust a hand through the bars.