Friday Fiction: Honey from the Rock

HONEY FROM THE ROCK

 

     Even Professor Charterhouse agreed that what happened afterward was mainly due to the unaccountable vagaries of our Post Office. Although I must bear some responsibility for what happened to poor Brutus Publico, it was mostly an incongruity in shipping rates and the good-natured if misguided efforts of our house-maid Nancy that led him to his unusual fate.

     My name is Amadeus Renford Bresslau, and it was the year 189-, in the little Texas town of Gothenberg, where I lived in the boardinghouse of Mrs. Virginia Wilbraham, as in an oasis of civilization in the western wilderness. I taught music and painting and was accounted a person of some learning and culture. So it was natural that I became friends with Professor Charterhouse when he moved to town, taking up residence in the Victorian mansion, newly converted to a boarding-house since the death of Mr. Wilbraham, who had been a prominent local businessman.

     We had much pleasant conversation in the parlor after supper, discussing the exciting new discoveries being made almost daily in archaeology and ethnology, the professor's particular specialities. Charterhouse, indeed, had moved to Gothenberg to study the interesting remains of Indian culture in the area. But he had made Mrs. Wilbraham's his pied-de-terre afterward, from which he would make his frequent expeditions. Sometimes he would be gone for a year at a time, having paid our landlady in advance to hold his quarters, and would return from out of the blue with fascinating specimens to fill his chambers and enthralling stories to garnish the evenings around the fire.

     I, of course, connected with the Professor on an aesthetic, not a scientific, level. The latest Eskimo fetish or Japanese idol in his collection fascinated me in its technique or effect, revealing the soul of the artist in the primitive wilderness. Charterhouse sometimes remarked that my observations could be very enlightening and provided him new insight on some of his discoveries. I found his elucidations on ancient people engrossing, certainly far above the conversations on cattle and corn that were the daily talk of the people of Gothenburg.

     It had been ten months since my friend had left for deepest Trans-Himalayan China, and I was sorely missing his company. Mrs. Wilbraham had finally been able to rent her third suite of rooms. The price she was asking, though fair for all the amenities offered, was a little above the common lodger. But our new fellow inmate, Mr. Brutus Publico, though financially well supplied, was nowhere near the gentleman Professor Charterhouse was. His talk was depressingly mundane.

     Mr. Brutus Publico (if that was his true name; I have since had some reason to doubt it) was a self-described commercial traveler, dealing out of the big city some thirty miles distant, selling farm supplies door to door in the counties round. He was for now in semi-retirement, he said, away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis.

     There was no selling in Gothenberg for him, either, except every now and then when he needed extra money. Then he hauled out a case of his sideline, as he called it, of novelties and notions, hawking them around town: toys that soon broke, ribbons and scarves that quickly faded, brittle plasticine religious figures of ambiguous feature. Customer’s memories would soon fade, too, and when he needed more ready cash there was always a fresh crop to be plucked.

     He was also, like Mr. Shakespeare's Autolycus, a snapper up of unconsidered trifles around the boardinghouse. Tobacco from the humidor, candies from presentation boxes placed in the parlor, or any special little treats I may have reserved in the pantry would go missing. If these absences were mentioned, he would throw the hint of suspicion on young Thomas Wilbraham Jr., but I knew he was a good lad, and the mischief hadn't started until Publico had taken up residence. I took to locking my rooms when I left, even just to visit another part of the house.

     The incident occurred in a rather dreary stretch of early November, and everything in our part of Texas had turned grawn--an otherwise indescribable color, a mixture of green, gray, brown, fawn, and straw. I was sitting on the front porch, eyes turned from the dull earth to contemplating the changing firmament, a rolling tapestry of bright blue sky and dark grey cloud, hastening to the south. My pipe was sending its own small clouds to follow them, as I composed a poem in my head, that had started with a small thread of thought. A thread that was forever broken and lost with the sudden appearance of Publico and his inimical braying laugh.

     "Afternoon, Bresslau," he said, sitting down and lighting one of his abominable cheap cigars. "Whatcha doing? Thinking about suicide? Good weather for it. Haw haw haw!"

     He belched out a cloud of acrid smoke along with his rancid guffaw. It is a shame that the mellow clouds of pipe tobacco, chosen for fragrance as well as flavor, should be tarred with the same brush as the odor of such pieces of painted rope.

     "No, Mr. Publico." I coughed, more to show my disapproval than anything. "I was just contemplating that overgrown clump of trees and its undergrowth there." I pointed to the woods that circled the house and stopped abruptly at the neatly clipped lawn. "In all the time I've lived here, I've never seen what's beyond it."

     "What, never cut a trail through the Widder's bushes afore?" he grinned. "Why, Bressie, yore a pretty backward feller, ain't yuh!" He doubled over wheezing, apparently amused at some obscure joke he had made.

     I could not understand his humor, but his disrespect and vile intention were clear, and disgusting. I picked up my hat and cane from the side table.

     "If Mrs. Wilbraham asks, I'm walking over to the general store," I said. "Good afternoon, Mr. Publico."

     "Yeah, I always figgered that you'd rather travel up the old dirt road, Bressie. See you later!"

     I left him on the porch, still shaking with his private laughter, and so it was I missed the postman's delivery that day.

     I jangled the bell somewhat more vigorously than usual as I entered the general store, unable, even after a half-hour walk, to control my feelings. Behind the counter, old Mr. Sanderson looked up startled from his almanac.

     "A half-pound of licorice, please," I said crisply.

     "Sure, Perfessor," he said, creaking to his feet. He shuffled over to the candy jars, weighed it out, then tipped it into a paper bag. "Anythin' else?"

     In a fit of pique, I added two ounces of latakia, a bag of apples, and tin of molasses to my order. As Sanderson collected these, I noticed he was glancing at me over his glasses now and then, as if he wanted to speak but couldn't decide if it was right. As he was ringing up my purchases, he finally coughed and brought it out.

     "So," he said. "Get your mail today?"

     "It hadn't arrived when I left," I said shortly.

     "Oh." He paused. "Just that me and Zeph was wonderin' what was in the big box."

     I should explain that the general store was also our de facto Post Office, and Zeph was Mr. Sanderson's assistant who handled deliveries, and, incidentally, the post. As a result, the place was the center of gossip, and any news or deductions the old man could reveal cemented his place as town oracle.

     "Where was it from?" I asked.

     "It said some place in Chinee. Isn't that where your friend's gone off to? Wasn't addressed to no-one in particular, just care of the address."

     "Indeed." I frowned, sudden misgivings taking me. "Perhaps I should go home and see. I'll let you know, next time I'm around."

     I paid the man, who looked disgruntled at the paucity of information, and hurried out.

     When I returned to the boarding house, Publico had already dragged the enormous crate into the parlor, broken it open, and was burrowing into its contents amid coconut matting and palm-leaf packing. One glance told me this was no delivery of farm articles, but almost certainly a shipment from Charterhouse.

     "Mr. Publico!" I barked. "What do you think you are doing?" 

     "I thought I was unpacking a package fer me," he grinned. "But turns out it was just a load of old junk. This for you, Bressie? Granmaw cleaned out her attic? Haw haw haw!"

     "I'll have you know this is the property of Professor Charterhouse and shipped all the way from China! I would thank you to treat it with more care."

     "Don't know why anybody would bother to tote a bag of rocks and rags halfway around the world," he grumbled, rising to his feet. "Now if it were gold or silver or something..."

     "Its value is of an historical and scientific nature, not monetary," I sniffed.

     "Well, I'll leave this worthless pile in your care, then. Seems fittin'. See you later, Bressie. Haw, haw, haw!"

     I sought out Mrs. Wibraham and obtained the key to Charterhouse's secured quarters, and between myself and young Wilbraham we cleared away the packing and transferred the contents of the crate to the musty rooms under her watchful eye. As we carried the items, I made a mental catalogue. There were silk scrolls (the "rags" of Publico's estimation), wooden instruments of unguessable use, and statues of various size and skill (Publico's "rocks").

     The largest statue was almost four feet tall. It was the squatting figure of some kind of half-human demon, and either some nature of the rock from which it was carved or some surpassing skill of the sculptor gave it the impression of being covered with prickling, petrified hair. It stippled the skin of our hands with deep pockmarks as we wrestled it upstairs.

     The last item I put away appeared to be a small souvenir jar, no bigger than six ounces. I squinted at the smudged, hand-lettered label tied to it, and read "Honey from The Rock." I dismissed young Wilbraham (who was eager to play with the palm-leaves) and rang for Nancy. I instructed her to lock it away on a high shelf in the pantry, away from pests, and not to bring it out until Professor Charterhouse came back. She took the jar, bobbed a curtsy, and went back to work. Mrs. Wilbraham and I locked up the room again, until such time as the Professor should return.

     As it turned out, we had not long to wait. Late the next afternoon I was sitting in the parlor, having sent off my last pupil of the day. I was playing a familiar passage of Buxtehude on my violin, to soothe my ears after the past hour of squawks and skirls, when my efforts were interrupted by the brittle bell of the mechanical front door. I paused and frowned at the indistinct voices from the front hall, then had sunk back into my sonata again when the door opened and in strode Professor Charterhouse.

     My violin squeaked as cacophonously as any student's as I rose in delight. I set the instrument down and strode to the door, where we shook hands with a vigorous grip.

     "Bresslau," he smiled. "Good to see you again. Still delighting the western plains with music, I see! Or should I say, I hear?"

     "Charterhouse! You look as fit as ever!"

     And he did. Many men return from overseas wracked with foreign diseases or broken from toil, but Charterhouse seemed to thrive on it. He was a tall, wiry man, and he held himself straight in an almost military stance. The only slight change was to his face, tanned by wind and snow, and a few more wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

     "This expedition was most bracing. I tell you, you've never seen winter till you've seen it halfway up a mountain peak! And wait till you see some of the relics I've collected!"

     "I've already seen some," I admitted. "A crate arrived yesterday and was opened by our new fellow lodger. I placed them in your rooms, for safe keeping."

     He frowned.

     "I must say, I don't like the sound of that. I'd best examine them at once."

     We headed into the hall and were met by the pleasantly surprised Mrs. Wilbraham.

     "Professor Charterhouse! Welcome home! It's so good to have you back!"

     "It's good to be back, dear lady! Dulce et domum, eh? I'm really looking forward to one of your wonderful dinners. I've eaten many exotic dishes, but there's nothing like one of your home-cooked meals."

     "I'll tell Nancy that you're back, and to set another place." She unthreaded a key from the chain in her apron pocket and handed it to him. "You go put your things away and freshen up. Supper's in half an hour. You can meet Mr. Publico and tell us all about your trip."

     He accepted the key and we clattered up the stairs to his room, talking all the way of the travels by rail and steamship. Once inside I undid the windows to let in the fresh air as he set his pack down. He rummaged through it, withdrawing at last a notebook bulging with papers. He took out a single sheet, overwritten by a densely annotated list.

     "Of course, the travel was the least remarkable part of the journey," Charterhouse said, eyes darting over the paper. "It's what I found hidden high in the mountains that will make the Academy sit up and take notice. A discovery of both anthropological and biological significance. These relics are the proof." He lifted his eyes up from the paper. They dashed around the room. "I hope to Nebuchadnezzar that snooper hasn't done any damage."

     He pulled the stub of a pencil out of his breast pocket and began to flit around the room to each relic, examining and ticking off items on his list.

     "I picked up a few interesting, if unremarkable, relics along the way -- this little figure of Mahakala is one that might amuse you; he's a protector of education -- but my main discovery, the one that will knock the Society back on its seat, is of a completely here-to-fore unreported ascetic sect.

     "I wouldn't go so far as to say this sect are heretics, but they appear to be an extreme black sheep in the fold, Bresslau. Hush-hush, not mentioned, big breech of manners to even allude to it, apparently. And that's just how they like it.

     "Now an odd thing about most ascetics and monks," he said, as he picked up a silk scroll and unrolled it, "Is that they tend to live in groups. Not much good in being holy if you can't be seen being holy, is there? Got to have a regular address where the faithful can drop off your lunch and whatnot. In return they can be holy at you.

     "Well this bunch -- they call themselves the A-Ka-Ten -- really don't want any of that. They are real isolationists. Eat only what they can scrape off the rocks. Don't let anyone see them if they can help it. Go mostly naked -- imagine it, just a clout, almost at the snowline! They don't even have a real monastery, just a huddle of rocks where they meet."

     I snorted.

     "I suppose if they meet at all, that rather shatters their image as solitaries, doesn't it?"

     "Ah, but that is just a launching point for their vocational adventure. There always must be at least one member who understands their peculiar rites and rituals and processes, who then passes them on and finally is released himself."

     He turned and held up a finger.

     "And thereafter begins their true peculiarity, the proof of which will astound the world.

     "It begins with physical exercises that leave the monk in a state devoid of body fat, then follows with a diet that not only includes the traditional food of the country, but a portion consisting of ground eggshells, snails, and crushed limestone. This calcareous mixture is increased as time goes on, until at last it is the only nourishment, if it can be called so, that he takes in. All the while he practices more and more a state of immobility, until at last he moves hardly at all."

     "I would think not," I said. "I would think at that point he would be almost dead."

     "And you'd be almost right. But here comes the most mysterious part of the story, the one link I haven't really been able to verify. At this point -- and they tell me that it also a matter of will power -- they give the novitiate a kind of red stone to swallow, having first dusted his skin with a powder of the same stone. And in an instant --" he snapped his fingers and looked at me triumphantly -- "he is petrified."

     "Now, I can see why you can't substantiate that part. They were surely telling you some kind of fable or wonder tale there."

     "Oh, that's not the fact I'm unsure of." He cleaned off a space from the sturdy oak dresser. "No, what I don't know is exactly what kind of red rock they use. I saw a petrification with my own eyes -- heard it too, for it makes an indescribable noise -- and here --," he reached down and lugged up a heavy object and set it triumphantly on the dresser. "Here is the proof."

     It was the prickly-haired figure that young Wilbraham and I had lugged up the day before.

     "Mister Bresslau, meet A-Ka-Ten Kutang, in the somewhat rocky flesh."

     I stared at it, aghast. I stared at Charterhouse. He was smiling proudly. It was not the smile of a joshing man. I pointed at the figure stiffly.

     "Are you telling me... do you mean to say... That is some kind of a mummified corpse?"

     "Oh, no, no, no, not at all! That's the wonder and the mystery of it, Bresslau! Kutang is alive, and merely sleeps, waiting for the second, the true part of his eremitage, his final loosening from human bonds."

     "I don't know what's worse, thinking he's alive or thinking he's dead," I said. I sat down on the bed, a familiarity I would never have taken if I weren't feeling so shaken. "For God's sake, explain what you mean."

     "This is just the first stage in his transformation," he went on calmly. "The cocoon from which he will emerge, as it were. After a ceremonial time his eyes and tongue -- you notice how the tongue is sticking out? -- will be anointed with a catalyst and he will spring back to life, purged of his humanity, fitted for life alone in the highest peaks, freed from the karmic wheel of Fate!  And when I apply that catalyst in front of the Society, not only will my tale be substantiated, but the truth of it as well. It will be the greatest sensation the field of Anthropology, maybe of Biology, perhaps all of Science itself has ever known. Why, my reputation after the presentation alone will be enough to fund twenty new expeditions!"

     "I don't believe it," I muttered. "I just don't believe it!"

     "Oh, but you will, the world will," he said absentmindedly, turning back to his list. "Now, where..."

     He was interrupted by a sudden clanging clatter from down below. Nancy was ringing the dinner bell, summoning us to the table. Charterhouse put down his list eagerly, putting a last tick on it to show where he was pausing. I rose from the bed.

     "Best lock up the room while we go down," I said. "Some things have changed around here, and not exactly for the better."

     We stopped to take turns washing up before dining, so it was a full five minutes before we descended the stairs and entered the dining room.  There was a delicious waft of food from the heavily laden meal of roast chicken, creamed potatoes, and gravy.  Publico had already planted himself at the head of the table on the far side of the room, broad napkin tucked into his sweaty shirt, and had drawn the side dishes and condiments down right next to his plate. He had cut and buttered himself an enormous slab of cornbread.

     "Hey, Bressie, about time you got here. And you must be the Perfessor. One thing you gotta learn, mister, you gotta move fast when I'm around."

     He held something small in one enormous paw, scraping at it with a teaspoon. A thin, viscous trickle, dark as molasses, fell on his cornbread. He picked up the slice and set the other object down. Charterhouse gasped.

     "The honey!"

     It was, indeed, the tiny pot that I had instructed Nancy to put away until the Professor arrived. She had interpreted my instructions that with Charterhouse's arrival it was time to take it out. Publico, with his usual greedy sweet tooth, had emptied the entire contents.

     "Don't touch it!" Charterhouse cried, lunging forward, but before he could reach him Publico had shoved the slab down his gullet in two bites. Charterhouse halted, stunned, as the man sat there, chewing and smiling with brutish satisfaction.

     "Sorry, Perfessor." He belched. "Good things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. Haw. Haw. Haw."

     "The catalyst!" Charterhouse babbled. "The effects! You haven't been prepared, man!" He came up short as a thought struck him.

     "Kutang! My demonstration!" He ran over and grabbed the jar from the table, confirmed its emptiness, and dashed it to the floor, where it shattered to bits. He rounded on Publico.

     "You stupid, stupid man!" he began, but stopped in shock and fascination. A change was coming over the stocky salesman.

     He sat bolt upright, spine stiff and arms quivering. His eyes bugged out, his already mottled skin flushed, and he throat gargled harshly as if he were trying to spit out inarticulate words that couldn't escape. He goggled at Charterhouse, and his palsied hands lifted up and started to scratch and tear at his shirt. He turned desperate eyes to me where I stood transfixed in the doorway.

     Suddenly Mrs. Wilbraham appeared next to me, a steaming tureen of peas in hand.

     "Here we go. Now we can... Lord o' Mercy, what's that?" she screeched. Publico sprang to his feet, ripping off his shirt, and breathing like an angry bull, revealed the horror beneath. Every single pore of his body was growing coarse black hair, sprouting and springing before our very eyes. Growth from his beard, head, eyebrows and even ears was flowing down to meet his hirsute chest.

     Mrs. Wilbraham screamed again, and Publico turned and advanced on her, almost reflexively, it seemed. I grabbed up a chair from the table, pressed her back with the other arm, and placed myself between the lady and the beast.

     "Stay back, Virginia," I warned, in a somewhat choked voice.

     Baffled, the Publico-thing swayed from side to side, then his attention seemed to snag on the window. Outside, the trees and the bushes were rippling and swaying on a rising breeze. In what I can only surmise as a sudden animalistic urge for the forest primeval, it threw itself bellowing through the frame with a crash, fell with a fleshy flop to the earth, picked itself up, and ran off out of sight, hooting and gibbering, into the brush.

     Charterhouse, Mrs. Wilbraham, and I looked at each other, stupefied, and slowly gathered at the table. Virginia sat the tureen down. She had not spilled a single pea.

 

     Of course, we arranged a search party. But we couldn't tell anybody the true tale of what had happened; who would believe us? The official story we put about was that he had suffered some sort of fit and run off.  His trail ran cold after a mile or so, though, even with the county's best dogs on the job, and after three days looking the sheriff declared the case closed. Publico not really having any people in the area, interest wasn't very high to keep it open.

     Charterhouse explained things to me thus, as we waited for his train. He was embarking on a journey back to China. The first part of the ritual prepared the mind and body, hardening the initiate against the coming isolation and privations.  The second part was, in effect, a rebirth, into the purity and simplicity of a beast. Without the first part of the ritual, there was little chance of Publico retaining any part of his human mind. There was nothing he could do for the man, even if he was found. But Charterhouse was returning the petrified Tibetan back to his fellows.

     "It's the least I can do for poor old Kutang. I fully intended to take this trip with him after he was revivified. No, there's no chance in getting hold of any more honey either, I'm afraid. I must confess, to my shame, that I actually removed him without consent. All for the greater glory of science, I thought. There may be some trouble when I show up and try to return him. But, as I say, I owe the poor fellow that much. Can't leave him like this forever."

     We shook hands as he boarded the train, his eyes already looking far off.

     "Keep an eye on my room and things, will you? I may be some time."

     Almost another year had passed, and the mellow month of September come around. I was escorting Mrs. Wilbraham -- Virginia, as I now regularly called her -- and Young Wilbraham to the County Fair. The widow and I had grown much closer after what she insisted on calling my "heroics" during the Publico affair, and my handling of details in the aftermath. We were, indeed, at the stage of our relationship that locals call "walking out," and we fully expect, in another three years or so, to be wed.

     One of the details I had helped with was the cleaning out of Publico's room. It is then that I found the evidences of his shady past: several documents of identity, including two spurious university degrees and three forged medical doctorates, each in a different name. Young Wilbraham -- Tommy, as I now call him --thought he might be a private detective, but I pointed out that that was the one persona he had no papers for, not even a card, as surely any real agent would, to produce at the arrest as proof of his bona fides.

     But I wasn't thinking of any of that, on that fine autumnal day. The sky was clear blue, the breeze was brisk and laden with the smells of cotton candy, roasting corn, and the not-totally-unpleasant tang of cow manure. I walked hand in hand with Virginia, as we let Tommy roam on ahead to scout out the pleasures of the fair.

     He quite suddenly returned to us, half-eaten candy apple in hand, to pull at his mother's sleeve.

     "C'mon, Ma!" he said. "They got a freak show we got to see! There's a midget, and a bearded lady, and a stretchy man, and all sorts of what-all!"

     "I don't know as that's quite proper...," she began, then saw the enthusiasm and wonder in the boy's eyes. She looked at me. I smiled indulgently.

     "I'm sure the day-time show is quite safe for boys," I said.  I handed him some quarters. "You go get us three tickets and we'll meet you there." He grabbed them eagerly and scuttled off through the crowd.

     "After all, we'll be with him to explain everything properly," I said after he'd left. "I'm sure when he sees how squalid the lives of these people are the allure of the weird will be over. He'll just fantasize about it if we don't."

     "If you say so, Renford."

     We met the excited Tommy outside the tent, a lurid, tawdry enough affair. We entered with the next group, guided by a carnie in a loud checkered suit, who assured us that this here was the smallest dwarf, the longest beard on a woman, the stretchiest man that ever was in the world. As we went along, I talked in a sotto voice about the vagaries of the pituitary gland, the oddness of hormones, and the tricks of contortionists. I could tell our guide was aware of my monologue as we travelled from booth to booth and was getting rather annoyed with it. When we reached the dim exit and final booth, he turned, and though he swiveled his head while he seemed to address the entire crowd, his eyes were fixed defiantly on me.

     "Ladies and gentlemen, we come to our last exhibit and to our final wonder. Although we have many admirable and unspeakable displays of the power of nature and the skill of man, here we have something unparalleled in all the annals of science! It is not man! It is not beast! It is an inexplicable mixture of both, an unholy missing link of unguessable age! It will eat anything! When caught, it was biting the heads from rattlesnakes and devouring the bodies, with no ill affect! If anyone can explain what it is--" here he shot me a particularly dirty look -- "the management will personally provide him with a box of cigars in gratitude! Ladies and Gentlemen, the gruesome, the mysterious, the Wonderous What-Is-It!"

     A low red lightbulb popped into life on cue, illuminating what proved to be a shallow pen or sty, awash with mud and filth. I gasped. In the center, eating from a bucket brimming with some kind of swill and looking quite happy and satisfied, was what remained of Brutus Publico.

     I approached the enclosure slowly to get a closer look, Virginia's hand still unconsciously clutched in mine. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the carnie, looking satisfied at my discomfiture. I don't think his erstwhile landlady recognized her former lodger. My movement drew the hairy thing's attention, though, and it raised its head as if expecting a treat.

     Our eyes locked. There was at first no trace of humanity, no recognition in those reddened eyes. Then something seemed to flicker across his features, some dim recollection. It looked down at my hand clasping Virginia's.

     His furry bulk quaked, as if bringing something up from the depths. The carnie looked concerned, and the crowd took a step back. The creature's mouth split open, showing rows of sharpened teeth. His throat worked like a cat ridding itself of a hairball, and then suddenly it burst forth to the amazement of the crowd.

     " 'Aw! 'Aw! 'Aw!" he croaked.

     Brutus Publico had had his last laugh. 

Notes

My notes indicate I began this story in January 2017 and finished soon after. It is set in my little fictional Texas town of Gothenburg which I created years ago as a setting for weird stories and which was eventually drawn into the orbit of Tales from the Bureau of Shadows. There is no hint of any connection in this story, though it is the kind of thing the Department of Extranatural Activities would keep an eye on.

'Bresslau' is a German-Polish surname. There is a small Texas unincorporated community called Breslau in Lavaca County, population about 65 in 2000. Amadeus Renford Bresslau is sort of a tribute to my own German ancestor, Amandus Oscar Babel (fl. ca. 1865); they were both rural music teachers. Electric bulbs were in use in 189-, though not in every town. My famous definition of 'grawn' is here incorporated.

The story is, of course, meant to be an alternative origin for the Yeti, or Chinese Wildman. I had already used the made-up term 'A-Ka-Ten' (akaten: 'horrible and holy') in my book A Grave on Deacon's Peak. I included it here to suggest (to those with close attention spans) a sort of legendary continuity around the world and in my stories. Though there is some suggestion that Professor Charterhouse never returned from China ('I may be some time'), he was designed to have the potential to be a recurring character.