affording a novel and subdued scientific light, by which divers venerable problems may be observed afresh

it is my opinion,” said uncle dudley, stretching out his slippered feet, and thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat—“it is my opinion that women are different from men.”

“several commentators have advanced this view,” i replied. “for example, it has been noted that the gentle sex cross a muddy street on their heels, whereas we skip over on our toes.”

“that is interesting if true,” responded uncle dudley. “what i mean is that all this talk about the human race is humbug. there are two human races! and they are getting wider apart every few minutes, too!”

“have you mentioned this to any one?” i asked.

uncle dudley went on developing his theme. “i daresay that for millions of years after the re-separation of the sexes this difference was too slight to be noticed at all. the cave man, for instance—the fellow who went around hunting the ichthyosaurus with a brick tied on the end of an elm club, and spent the whole winter underground sucking the old bones, and then whittling them up into runic buttons for the south kensington museum: i suppose, now, that his wife and sister-in-law, say, didn’t strike him as being specially different from himself—except, of course, in that they only got plain bones and gristle and so on to eat, whereas all the marrow and general smooth-sailing in meats went his way. you, can’t imagine him saying to himself: ‘these female people here are not of my race at all they are of another species. they are in reality as much my natural enemies as that long-toed, red-headed, brachycephalous tramp living in the gum-tree down by the swamp, who makes offensive gestures as i ride past on my tame ursus spelous’—now, can you?”

i frankly shook my head. “no, i don’t seem to be able to imagine that. it would be almost as hard as to guess off-hand where, when, and how you caught this remarkable scientific spasm.”

uncle dudley smiled. he rose, and walked with leisurely lightness up and down in front of the chimney-piece, still with his palms spread like little misplaced wings before his armpits. he smiled again. then he stopped on the hearth-rug and looked down amiably upon me.

“well—what d’ye think? there’s something in it, eh?”

“my dear fellow,” i began, “what puzzles me is——”

“o, i don’t mean to say that i’ve worked it all out,” put in uncle dudley, reassuringly. “why, i get puzzled myself, every once in a while. but i’m on the right track, my boy; and, as they say in adelaide, i’m going to hang to it like a pup to a root.”

“how long have you been this way?” i asked, with an affectation of sympathy.

uncle dudley answered with shining eyes. “why, if you’ll believe me, it seems now as if i’d had the germs of the idea in my mind ever since i came back to england, and began living here at fernbank. but the thing dawned upon me—that is to say, took shape in my head—less than a fortnight ago. it all came about through being up here one evening with nothing to read, and my toe worse than usual, and mrs albert having been out of sorts all through dinner. somehow, i felt all at once that i’d got to read scientific works. i couldn’t resist it. i was like joan of arc when the cows and sheep took partners for a quadrille. i heard voices—darwin’s and—and—benjamin franklin’s—and—lots of others. i hobbled downstairs to the library, and i brought up a whole armful of the books that mrs albert bought when she expected lady wallaby was going to be able to get her an invitation to attend the hon. mrs coon-alwyn’s biological conversaziones. look there! what do you say to that for ten days’ work? and had to cut every leaf, into the bargain!”

i gazed with respect at the considerable row of books he indicated: books for the most part bound in the scarlet of the international series or the maroon of contemporary science, but containing also brown covers, and even green “sport” varieties.

“well, and what is it all about?” i asked. “why have you read these things? why not the reports of the commission on agricultural depression, or lewis morris’s poems, or even——” but my imagination faltered and broke.

“it was instinct, my boy,” returned uncle dudley, with impressive confidence. “there had been a thought—a great idea—growing and swelling in my head ever since i had been living in this house. but i couldn’t tell what it was. as you might say, it was wrapped up in a cocoon, like the larv? of the lepidoptera—ahem!—and something was needed to bring it out.”

“when i was here last you were trying hollands with quinine bitters,” i remarked casually.

“don’t fool!” uncle dudley admonished me. “i’m dead in earnest. as i said, it was pure instinct that led me to these books. they have made everything clear. i only wanted their help to get the husk off my discovery, and hoist it on my back, us it were, and bring it out here in the daylight. and so now you know what i’m getting at when i say: women are different from men.”

“that is the discovery, then?” i inquired.

uncle dudley nodded several times. then he went on, with emphasised slowness: “i have lived here now for four years, seeing my sister-in-law every day, watching ermyntrude grow up to womanhood and the little girls peg along behind her, and meeting the female friends who come here to see them—and, sir, i tell you, they’re not alone a different sex: they’re a different animal altogether! take my word for it, they’re a species by themselves.”

“miss timby-hucks is certainly very much by herself,” i remarked.

my friend smiled. “and not altogether her own fault either,” he commented. “but, speaking of science, it’s remarkable how, when you once get a firm grip on a big, central, main-guy fact, all the little facts come in of their own accord to support it. now, there’s that young simpleton you met here at dinner a while ago: i mean eustace hump. do you know that both ermyntrude and the timby-hucks, and even miss wallaby, think that that chap is a perfect ideal of masculine wit and beauty? you and i would hesitate about using him to wad a horse-pistol with: but there isn’t one of those girls that wouldn’t leap with joy if he began proposing to her; and as for their mothers, why, the old ladies watch him as a kingfisher eyes a tadpole.”

“your similes are exciting,” i said; “but what do they go to show?”

“my dear fellow, science can show anything. i haven’t gone all through it yet, but i tell you, it’s wonderful! take this, for instance”—he reached for a green book on the mantel, and turned over the leaves—“now listen to this. the book is written by a man named wallace—nice, shrewd-looking old party by his picture, you can see—and this is what he says on page 285: ‘some peahens preferred an old pied peacock; a canada goose paired with a bernicle gander; a male widgeon was preferred by a pintail duck to its own species; a hen canary preferred a male greenfinch to either linnet, goldfinch, siskin, or chaffinch.’ now, do you see that? the moment my eyes first lighted on that, i said to myself: ‘now i understand about the girls and eustace hump.’ isn’t it clear to you?”

“absolutely,” i assented. “you ought to read a paper at the royal aquarium—before the balloon society, i mean.”

“and then look at this,” uncle dudley went on, with animation. “now, you and i would ask ourselves what on earth such a gawky, spindling, poor-witted youngster as that thought he was doing among women, anyhow. but you turn over the page, and here you have it: ‘goat-suckers, geese, carrion vultures, and many other birds of plain plumage have been observed to dance, spread their wings or tails, and perform strange love-antics.’ doesn’t that fasten hump to the wall like a beetle on a pin, eh?”

“but i am not sure that i entirely follow its application to your original point,” i suggested.

“about women, you mean? my boy, in science everything applies. the woods are full of applications. but seriously, women are different. as i said, in the barbarism at the back of beyond this divergence started. with the beginning of what we call civilisation, it became more and more marked. the progress of the separation increases nowadays by square-root—or whatever you call it. the sexes are wider apart to-day than ever. they like each other less; they quarrel more. you can see that in the divorce courts, in the diminished proportion of early marriages, in the increasing evidences of domestic infelicity all about one.”

i could not refrain from expressing the fear that all this boded ill for the perpetuity of the human race.

uncle dudley is a light-hearted man. he was not depressed by the apprehensions to which i had given utterance. instead he hummed pleasantly to himself as he put wallace back on the shelf. he began chuckling as a moment later he bethought himself to fill our glasses afresh.

“did i ever tell you my cat story?” he asked cheerily, testing the knob to see that the door was shut. “once a little boy came in to his father and said: ‘pa, we won’t be troubled any more with those cats howling about on our roof at night. i’ve just been looking out of the upstairs window, and they’re all out there fighting and screaming and tearing each other to pieces. there won’t be one of them alive by morning!’ then the father replied: ‘my son, you imagine a vain thing. when increasing years shall have furnished your mind with a more copious store of knowledge, you will grasp the fact that all this commotion and dire disturbance which you report to me only signifies more cats.’”

at this juncture the servant came in with the soda-water. we talked no more of science that evening.