'And he a professor!'

'There is the wonder of it! It's the greatest brain in Europe, with a driving force behind it that can turn all his dreams into facts. They do all they can to hold him back for his colleagues hate him like poison, but a lot of trawlers might as well try to hold back the Berengaria. He simply ignores them and steams on his way.'

'Well,' said I, 'one thing is clear. I don't want to have anything to do with him. I'll cancel that appointment.'

'Not a bit of it. You will keep it to the minute-and mind that it is to the minute or you will hear of it.'

'Why should I?'

'Well, I'll tell you. First of all, don't take too seriously what I have said about old Challenger. Everyone who gets close to him learns to love him. There is no real harm in the old bear. Why, I remember how he carried an Indian baby with the smallpox on his back for a hundred miles from the back country down to the Madeira river. He is big every way. He won't hurt if you get right with him.'

'I won't give him the chance.'

'You will be a fool if you don't. Have you ever heard of the Hengist Down Mystery-the shaft-sinking on the South Coast?'

'Some secret coal-mining exploration, I understand.'

Malone winked.

'Well, you can put it down as that if you like. You see, I am in the old man's confidence, and I can't say anything until he gives the word. But I may tell you this, for it has been in the Press. A man, Betterton, who made his money in rubber, left his whole estate to Challenger some years ago, with the provision that it should be used in the interests of science. It proved to be an enormous sum – several millions. Challenger then bought a property at Hengist Down, in Sussex. It was worthless land on the north edge of the chalk country, and he got a large tract of it, which he wired off.