the important discovery was made that
there was nothing beneath. Nay, I am
wrong! Embedded in the soil, an object
was perceptible, strongly resembling, both
in form and volume, the drumstick of
a Cochin-China fowl. You smile. Wait.
Slight and inconsequential as this success
may appear, it encouraged the party to
further explorations. These resulted, to
cut my story short, in the actual discovery
of the remains of a colossal human being,
who could not have been less than twenty-five
feet six inches in stature! Jones's
amazement may be conceived!"

"It cannot exceed mine!" said I.

"But it was probably nothing,"
continued Dick, "compared with that of
Sertorius, if we may believe Plutarch. 'How
great,' remarks that usually cold and
cautious writer (betrayed for a moment
into enthusiasm), 'how great was his
surprise, when, opening the sepulchre of the
Phœnician Antæus, he beheld a body sixty
cubits long!'"

"I should think so!"

"Now," resumed my friend, brightly,
"what is this pigmy, compared with more
recent acquisitions? What would
Sertorius have said to the giant of Trapani—
sixteenth century—described by Boccaccio:
who attained the height of two hundred
cubits, and one of whose teeth, yet sound
and serviceable, and weighing six pounds
four ounces avoirdupois, is still preserved
in the museum at Berlin?"

"Labelled, ignorantly, 'mastodon.' I
have seen it," said I.

"While," concluded Longchild, frowning,
"remains even more stupendous, have
revealed themselves to the scientific
investigator. I cannot accept three hundred
feet, British measure, as the ordinary
stature of man, at any definite epoch. But,
twenty-five is a very different affair. It is,
in point of fact, hardly more than double
the height of well-developed individuals of
our own time, occasionally to be seen——"

"For a shilling," I put in.

"Undeteriorated specimens," pursued
Mr. Longchild, firmly, "of a race that
peopled the earth in its august adolescence.
To what may we attribute their present
rarity? Simply to this. That, nature,
delighting in contrasts, somewhere called
into existence a new and puny race,
intended probably as objects of curiosity and
mirth to their mightier brethren. That,
nevertheless, one of the latter, with a morbid
love of the opposite, and a disregard
of the general interests of humanity which
cannot be too severely reprehended, took
to wife some wretched little fifteen-foot
thing, and inaugurated that decadence, of
which," concluded Dick, striking his palm
upon the table with a force that made the
glasses ring, "we are reaping the bitter,
and humiliating fruits!"

"But," I observed, "to return to these
highly valuable Sardinian remains. Is
there no reason to apprehend that they
may be claimed by the country to which
they undoubtedly belong? There are
antiquarians in that island—Spano, and others
—no less enthusiastic than our own
indomitable Jones."

"Spano," replied Mr. Longchild,
"handsomely declined to advance any claim on
behalf of his government. It is true, he
did not seem entirely satisfied that Jones's
conjecture was correct."

"The skeleton was incomplete?"

"To the uninitiated, yes," said Dick.
"The non-scientific observer demands that
everything should be revealed to his actual
senses. Literally, then, these invaluable
relics consisted of a most gratifying, though
inconsiderable, portion of the thigh-bone:
a fibula that left nothing to be desired:
and, to crown all, a couple of grinders.
These, my friend, were all. But here,
science steps in to our aid. Through her
marvellous lens, we see these seemingly
dissevered bones draw together, and,
united with their missing fellows, grow
into the mighty creature of which they
had once formed part. We gaze, with awe
and rapture, on those ship-like ribs; those
tree-like legs; that dome-like head! We
look upon each other, and redden with
shame, as the fancy occurs to us, that had
one of us to act as dentist to this gigantic
thing, he would have to bear the tooth
away upon his shoulder!"

Dick was silent for a moment, then
resumed more calmly:

"All this, Harry, confirms me in the
belief that we all spring from one giant
stock. If comparison with the remains of
our massive sires be painful to our vanity,
let us at least exult in the knowledge, thus
confirmed, of what we once were. I, myself,"
continued Dick, drawing himself up with
dignity, "as my name, Longchild, would
seem to imply, am a scion of a race
remarkable for length of limb. If a baby
could be described as colossal, I deserved
that appellation."

"The painful reflection, after all, is,
what we shall ultimately descend to,"
interrupted I.