The Day of the Dragon

by Guy Endore
First published in Blue Book Magazine in its June 1934 issue the copyright of this story was not renewed
according to Stanford Library .

Image by ufukgazi from Pixabay

No, in those days no one ever thought of such a peril to the existence of the human race. I was young then, but I recall the
times distinctly. Scientists at their annual meetings used to discus the probability of the termination of the triumphant
progress of the human race, but that it should come about in this fashion – this terrible and at the same time ridiculous
fashion – that, no one ever imagined.

At the present writing it does seem that the complete extinction of all mankind will be delayed, for there must be quite a
number of small communities that have found refuge in the mines and caves. And thought it is long since we have had any
word from them, yet in the big cities such as Paris, Berlin and London, where there are impregnable subway systems, men
and women can still hold out against the terror that ravages the open country. But how long can we last?

Few people, I suppose, are more capable than I of recapitulation the whole story from its completely insane inception of
which I believe I was, and remain, the only living witness. I have heard lately so many different versions of how it all
began that I want to say this: they are for the most part far from the truth. But it is a very human necessity to demand an
explanation of some sort...

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 Well, as I say, in those days scientists used to imagine many perils to mankind. Some foresaw vast cataclysms; others
predicted more subtle scourges. Very frequent was the prophecy that insects would succeed to the rule of the earth. I can
still recall clearly a very stirring lecture delivered by a great entomologist. He began by pointing out that through new
species of insects were being discovered at the rate of ten thousand a year, and over half a million kinds were already listed,
yet by virtue of the processes of evolution, he felt that the insects were increasing their species at a faster rate then they were
being cataloged, certainly faster then their widely varying habits were capable of being studied. So that, in short, as far as
insects were concerned, science was playing a losing hand.

He pictured vividly the hordes of insects that attacked our food crops in those days, the blights, the scales, the weevils,
the fruit-flies and moths of all kinds. The listeners shivered as they heard tales of vast clouds of grasshoppers leaving
whole countries bare, all growing things nibbled down to the last stalk; tales of permanent battle-lines of the entrenched
farmer, the gardener, the orchard grower, fighting off with poisonous gases the perpetually renewed attacks of their
inexhaustible insect enemies.

What, the lecturer queried, might happen in a moment of inattention? What, if my mischance some natural enemy of a
given insect were to cease its alliance with man and allow this insect to breed in such multitude as to ruin crops all over the
world? Imagine, the lecturer told us, months of famine during which whole races would perish and others lapse into
savagery and cannibalism. Was that to be the end of our proud civilization? Our puny chemicals would soon be found
ineffective against these armored beasts, whose small size and vast numbers are so much in their favor.

'But,' so this lecturer affirmed, 'the peril form such disorganized swarms is small compared to the offered by those
practically civilized insects, the ants, whose numerous varieties are already so high on the rungs of the ladder of progress.
The ant cultivates plants, keeps domestic animals, has masons and bridge builders, law-makers and rulers, soldiers and
captains. What if some napoleon of the ant-world were to arise and were to ally all the many species of ants into a great
confederacy, the object of which would be the subjugation of the earth? What if ant-scientists were to discover some
glandular extract that would cause them to grow to enormous size? Have not bees and many other insects already
developed something analogous? What is to prevent them from doing this, then waxing big as rats, to move against
mankind in order to enslave and domesticate it? What a comic tragedy! Man ending his history in the stalls of vast
pyramidal ant-hills-the ant's bond servant, his domestic animal!'

Curious, now it think of it, how man has come to a pass that is nearly, if not quite as ridiculous. I must say this lecturer
had a pretty clear idea of what would happen, but how it was to come about-that was another matter. He had his guess, to
which he was entitled. The guesses of others took other directions. I shan't dwell upon them at length. Now it was the
sun that was to become exhausted, whereupon our planet would grow cold, the vast seas frozen to the very bottom and all
life refrigerated to death in perfect cold-storage embalming. Again it was the earth that was to cease to revolve, leaving
one-half of itself parched in perpetual high-noon sunshine, the other frozen in eternal midnight. Or else it was a comet that
was to strike our earth and shatter it into millions inconsequential planetoids.

To such cataclysmic horrors other opposed more subtle dangers. Did not the statistics on insanity show that its rate of
increase was such that it would not be long before the whole world would be a raving madhouse, in which such poor normal
beings as might remain would have a far from enviable fate? Would not, so other students asked, the increasing use of fuel
disturb the balance of the atmosphere? Would not the use of oil by motor-ships give rise to a scum of oil on the seas? In
short, were we not about to blanket the earth and the waters and shut out he health-giving ultra-violet rays without which
life is impossible?

Ah, but that we should be attacked and destroyed by a legendary animal – no that I never heard from the mouth of any of
these scientists. Why, such an animal does not exist, that would have said. Ridiculous! A fabulous monster? Why,
that's pure myth! Oh, good enough, I suppose, for fairy tale writers and for artists with lively fancies. But we serious –

Well, it was out of such legends that it came about. That sounds strange and impossible, but it is true. Listen:

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 In the old days, in the golden era when mankind walked out carefree into the great light, where the laughing sun played
on the pied fields, and the good breeze blew-I was then a reporter; and I well remember the time I was called upon to do a
story on a life toad said to have been immured for a billion years in rock. That was the beginning of it

n some upstate county, this toad hopped out of a kind of natural bubble in the stone, hopped out just as the stone cutters
chisel broke through into the air-hole. And the workman, flabbergasted, ran to the editor of the village paper and there
gasped out his tale. A local geologist claimed that the rock of this region had been laid down a billion years or more ago,
and that the toad must therefore be a billion years old or more. But the editor of the paper called the stone-cutter a fool for
not having caught the toad. A group of people, however, who had gone out to investigate found a toad not ten feet away
from the cup-like depression, the stone-bubble, and there was no reason to think that this any other but the long-lived toad,
just out from a billion years of solitary confinement.

The story, though old and often scorned, got about. The toad was exhibited in the village drugstore, where he
contentedly accepted a tribute of live flies; and a reporter from a nearby town called to write up the tale and take pictures of
the toad and the quarry man. And so the story came to New York. The Sunday rotogravure ran the pictures of the event
and such was the interest stirred up that I was asked to collect opinions from the wiseacres of the Museum and the local
colleges and scientific institutes.

Naturally I took advantage of this assignment to look up my old teacher, Crabshaw. We used to call him Fossil Crab's
Paw. If you said it rapidly it sounded so much like Professor Crabshaw, that we dared to say it to his face, and being young
and silly, we thought it a very brave and clever thing to do. I thought it would be good fun to see old Crabshaw again.

But it did not prove to be such fun, for the once so familiar biologic laboratory on the top floor made me melancholy.
And the memory of many drowsy afternoons spent here, dissecting cockroaches and rats, afflicted me.

The dissecting-room was empty, but there in the corner was old Professor Crabshaw's office. I could see him sitting at
the desk, bent over a pile of examination papers. He was more seedy than ever and I swear he wore the same acid-stained
smock, even as his meek face bore the same old pale and drooping whiskers.

The Honors and awards of being a scientist had passed over Professor Crabshaw and left him practically where he had
started. He was still an instructor, overworked and poor. And yet he had done some fair work. He used to tell, with
considerable pride, how his work on the surface-tension of various fluids taken from protozoa of different types has
suggested to him the possibility of constructing a synthetic cell. This suggestion had been taken up by a later worker and
carried to success, reaping fame and rich material rewards, but not for Crabshaw.

I introduced myself to the Professor and reminded him that I had once been a student in his class. He smiled and bade
me be seated. That he was pleased to have a great newspaper ask him for his opinion, was evident.

'Of course there is no truth in it. Just another popular fallacy like horsehair snakes. The toad no doubt lived near by.
You say yourself that it differs not at all from the present species common to that region. That explains the whole story,
which after all relies almost entirely on the say-so of the quarry man, who was probably frightened out of his wits when a
toad hopped past his chisel.'

'May I quote you?' I asked.

It was in his answer to this that Professor Crabshaw revealed all the meekness of his nature, all the years in which the
better diplomats in his science had advanced to more important posts, while he, the patient worker, had remained behind to
correct examination papers.

"I'm afraid I can't permit that. You may say – ah – that a professor at a local college – ah – a well-known biologist – of
note – well, any sort of paraphrase.' He smiled, pleased at his own flattery of himself, and content to visualize himself
praised, even anonymously.

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 As I left, I imagined him secretly hoping I might forget his injunction and publish his name. But we published nothing,
for it was decided to have a feature article on the subject in the Sunday magazine section. When the editor of the Sunday
magazine told me this, I suggested Professor Crabshaw as a likely person to do the article. The moment I did so, I regretted
it. No one could have been more unsuited to the task. But I consoled myself with the thought that he would surely refuse
to write for a cheap paper.

But I was mistaken. He accepted, so I learned, and with great pleasure. Had he been seduced by the need of the two
hundred dollars, which was the magazine's price for the article? I confess I was rather worried, for I felt myself responsible
fro the whole business.

I therefore called him up on the telephone and began by explaining that it was I who recommended him.

'I thought as much,' he replied; 'and you must have lunch with me. Can you meet me at the Faculty Club at once?"

I accepted, thinking that my business would be settled better across a table.

Professor Crabshaw was prompt at the appointment. With was a his wife, a buxom, frowzy person, whose not unkindly
face showed plainly the effects of disappointed hopes.

She was voluble in her thanks to me. I was so kind of me to have recommended Paul! That it was the two hundred
dollars that magnetized her was easy to guess. Her conversation at the luncheon was of nothing but money.

'Look,' she said, 'there's Professor Slocum. Of course you've heard of him. Economics, you know. They say he's made
a fortune in Wall Street. Those economists have secrets. You should see his new roadster.

'And that Professor Dillinger, yes, the man with the little beard. He's rich. That's his wife there, the tall one with the
permanent. He's got political connections. They say he's the brains for the sugar lobby.'

'Now, Lizzie -' Crabshaw objected.

'But it's true. Just take a look at Professor Wailson. Just because he discovered that the mob reacts like a spoiled baby,
he got himself a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year job with an advertising house... Oh, Paul, why haven't you ever discovered
something brilliant like that? But of course, what can one do with protozoa? I always say there's no profit to be made out
of raising such tiny bits of things.'

'Well I did once discover -' Crabshaw began meekly.

'Yes, Paul, we know all about that,' his wife said severely.

'But, Lizzie, I was only going to explain to Mr– '

'Paul, how often must I tell you to call me Elspeth? You know,' she said, turning to me, 'that I have always felt that if
Paul would only get used to calling me Elspeth, instead of Lizzie, he'd make at least a thousand dollars more a year.'

I saw that this conversation was becoming very painful to Crabshaw, so I began to question him about the article.

'What have you planned to say?'

'Well, I've begun with an examination of the much-disputed topic of what constituted scientific evidence. Then taking
up the story of the toad, I show that the proper evidence is lacking. And I conclude with a discussion of the life-habits of
the toad and the experiments that have been made on prolonging the hibernation of various animals, demonstrating that they
cannot survive much beyond the usual period.'

This was, of course, precisely what I had been afraid of; a rather dull, scientific, educational tract.

'That's fine,' I said. 'Hm – but I'm just a little afraid it may not appeal to the reading public of our paper. Now, if you're
seriously thinking about writing this sort of article, you'll have to come down a bit. Meet the public halfway. Its interests
would be aroused by a toad that has actually lived a billion years. Give the toad a chance to do his stuff.'

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 'But toads don't live a billion years,' Crabshaw exclaimed. 'It's preposterous!'

'That's it!' I cried. 'That's precisely it. The more preposterous, the better. You are a scientist, and you can give the
preposterous that scientific veneer that will make it acceptable.'

'But – ' objected Crabshaw, his jaw hanging.

His wife cut him short: 'Of course you can, Paul. Think of it; two hundred dollars every time you write an article!
Why, that's almost a month's salary.'

'Even more than that, Mrs Crabshaw,' I said, 'if the articles should ever come into demand and editors compete for your
husband's product.'

Professor Crabshaw looked most woebegone, but we two had no pity on him. I saw that in gaining an ally in Mrs
Crabshaw I had the matter clinched. And indeed, the article turned out to be all that could be expected of the most
experienced yellow journalist. We ran it under bit headlines; 'GREAT SCIENTIST CHAMPIONS BILLION-YEAR-OLD
TOAD, by Professor Paul Crabshaw, internationally famous biologist.' And we had enormous pictures of toads along with
a strip of vignettes showing ' our artist's conception of history and the toad', in which, above repeated pictures of the toad
immured in his rock prison, we depicted prehistoric animals, the glacial periods, early apelike man, first signs of civilization
in Egypt, then the Jews captive in Babylon, then Christ on the cross, and following that, Columbus in his caravel, Napoleon,
and then the final picture typifying the most up-to-date scene: the President of the United States surrounded by a draped
flag and a spread-eagle. In the article itself Professor Crabshaw adduced numerous reasons, all couched in the form of
striking anecdotes, and designed to prove the possibility of a billion-year-old toad.

It really made great yellow journalism, but it made mighty poor science for a college professor, and the higher powers
were down upon him at once.

But that meant nothing to the editor of the Sunday magazine. A few weeks later, when passengers came home with a tale
of having sighted a sea-serpent, that hoary legend was sent to Professor Paul Crabshaw for confirmation, and again he made
good, no doubt goaded by Lizzie.

In a short time the articles of Crabshaw had become indispensable and were a regular feature, for which we paid
increasing prices. There followed articles of boys brought up by wolves, living in the forest and running on all fours, and
articles on the plagues of Egypt and – well, that sort of thing.

For several years this continued, during which Lizzie sure enough blossomed into Elspeth, with facials, permanents and
better clothes to make her look the part. I used to meet them now and then for lunch at the Faculty Club, where Professor
Crabshaw, at his wife's behest, still went, thought he could feel that his colleagues had lost their respect for him.

'But I'm preparing my revenge,' he confided to me one day. 'I'm going to electrify the world. You just watch and see.
I'm going to prove that marvelous things can and do happen. And that will be my vindication for that tripe on "Was Jonah
Swallowed by a Whale?" and "What will man look like Fifty Thousand Years from Now?"

'Tell me more,' I begged.

He shook his head and Elspeth said: 'He won't even show me what he's doing. But he's got himself a laboratory or
something off in New Jersey and goes there every day now.'

One morning Crabshaw called me up and insisted that I must come up to see him at once, that he had something quite
marvelous to show me. There was a note of exultation in his voice that made me drop my work and obey him.

When I arrived, he wrung my hand in his thin nervous fingers, then, skipping ahead of me like a French dancing-master,
he led me to his study.

'Now,' he said, when I was seated, 'my great day is at hand!' And with a smile that freed and relaxed all the long-frozen
wrinkles on his face, he declared proudly: 'I was fired last night.'

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Seeing my look of astonishment, he continued: 'No, not fired precisely, but given an ultimatum in something of this
manner.' The old Crabshaw pulled in his little chin, tried to look cocky and arrogant and paunchy and said: 'Here stood
Prexy, jut like this; he said "Mr Crabshaw" (you see it was no longer Professor but just Mister), "Mr Crabshaw, I think the
moment has come for you to decide what subject you are most interested in, science or fiction-writing!"

'I answered him back hotly; "Mr President, you have no right to set limit on scientific investigation." And he answered;
"No, but we do try to keep our departments of science and of belles-letters distinct."

'Then I said: "Mr President, if you want to be shown that I am not romancing but have made one of the greatest
contributions ever made to biology, I invite you over to my New Jersey laboratory tomorrow. You will see mythology
come to life. I have invited several of my skeptical colleagues to come with me and if you wish to be fair to me, I shall
have the honor of calling for you at three tomorrow!'

'He refused at first, but upon my insistence that I deserved a fair trial, he consented. It is past two now and we must
leave soon. You will go along as a member of the press and you will write this up for your paper. So get out your pencil
and make notes of what I am going to tell you. This will be the biggest scoop of your life and will serve to repay some of
what you did for me.'

'But -' I began.

'Let's not argue now,' he said hastily. 'We haven't the time. Listen carefully. I was going to make an article of this
myself, but on second thought I decided that the first report ought to come from someone else. I would never be credited
by serious readers: for it is more fantastic than anything I have ever written and yet every word of it is true.

'Let me begin at the beginning, however. You knew, did you not, that for some time I have been suffering under the
slights of my fellow-scientists? I confess I did write many silly articles, but, if science would not butter my bread, then I
had to do something else. So for a long time I have been scheming to rehabilitate myself. At first all I could do was hope
and pray that something might happen that would, of itself, lift this reproach from me, some striking event that would, so to
speak, given a little basis for my flights of fancy.

'Then I myself began to cudgel my brains to scheme out something of my own. After several false attempts that I need
not discuss here, I recalled something that I had known for many years. And I wondered if there might not be a possibility
for me in this bit of knowledge. Perhaps you can still recall my classroom lecture on the nature of the reptilian heart?
Well, in brief, it is, compared to the mammalian heart, the human heart for example, an incomplete organ. In a way, it is a
malformation. For it is so constructed that the blood vessels of the animal are never filled with freshly oxygenated blood.
The old stale blood, replete with body poisons, mixes in the chambers of the heart with the bright, clean blood from the
lungs and is pumped back through the body again, only half cleansed.

'Scientifically, we express that by saying that the septum between the ventricles, the wall that should be there to keep the
two blood streams separated, is completely formed. The animal thus suffers all its lifetime form auto-intoxication, and by
nature sluggish. Suffers is perhaps the wrong word, for its whole organism is evidently attuned to this sub-normal state.
The alligator is, then, to speak roughly, a lifelong congenital cardiac, incapable of great activity except in infrequent spasms.
His race is an invalid race, each member born an invalid and remaining an invalid race, each member born an invalid and
remaining an invalid throughout its existence.

'And does not the alligator give us an example of how the cardiac should live? No physician could prescribe anything
finer for his patients than the alligator's calm, docile, peaceful, snoozy sort of life. Notice the alligators at the aquarium.
They may look fierce, but they are condemned invalids and no matter how long they live, they will continue to practice
extreme caution, sparing their poor circulatory systems, lying all day in bed, that is to say in the warm mud, and doing little
more than sending out an occasional blink of an eyelid.

'Well,' Crabshaw went on before I could interrupt, 'it occurred to me one day to see what would happen if that bad heart
condition of the alligator were cleared up or at least improved by stretching that incomplete septum to form a dividing wall

6
between the venous and the arterial blood streams. I immediately procured a lot of baby alligators and set to work to find
out.

'My method was simple. I just chloroformed my patient and operated on him, following, as well as I could, the directions
given in a textbook on surgery.

'My Mortality rate was enormous. No doubt my surgical technique was atrocious. But then, I'm no surgeon and don't
pretend to be one. It seemed that the heart condition only grew worse after the incomplete septum was stretched out. The
poor alligators just turned up their pale and swollen bellies and gave up their alligatorish ghosts; many of them did not even
bother to recover from the effects of the chloroform.

I, myself, was frequently on the point of throwing up the sponge, when patient number 87 gave me the courage to carry
on. For several hours after the operation, that fellow ran about the room like a frisky puppy. I am sure that no one in the
world had ever witnessed such speed and agility on the part of an alligator. I tell you, he ran like a chipmunk, dived in and
out of the water tank, leaped, frolicked and dashed about in a reckless, gleeful manner that was a marvel and a delight to
behold. Then suddenly, over he turned, wriggled his paws madly, like a toy train upset, the wheels of which continue to
spin until the spring has unwound.

'Number 87 revived my courage. I determined to fight on and as I say, I gradually grew more skillful and altered my
technique by constant improvement as I studied the matter. Finally, I determined to try somewhat larger specimens than
those I had hitherto been working on and do more thorough and careful operations. Out of ten trials, I achieved two
amazing successes. Whereupon I ceased to operate on further specimens and studied these two.

'I noted, in the first place, that they devoured from four to eight times as much food as ordinary alligators of their age.
But they were never still for a moment, whereas their ailing brothers slept most of the day. Indeed, my two alligators grew
so fast that I realized that something had to be done quickly or they would soon outgrow my little laboratory. At that time I
worked in a store I had rented – a former sea food shop – in facilities for the performance of my experiments. I say it
behooved me now to hasten, lest I be caught in a jam, for at their rate of growth I realized that I would be unable to move
them. Fortunately, I was able to locate and rent, for a reasonable price, a former platinum refinery in New Jersey, a large
single story brick building, a shed rather, which was particularly suited to my purposes since the windows were all heavily
barred with iron.

'I had some trouble crating and moving my pets. I had to creep up on the beasts and spray them with chloroform, and
that was dangerous business, for I very nearly chloroformed myself. I should have had help, but I wanted no inkling of my
work to reach the outside world. And those alligators were quick as birds and big too, as large I should say as young
calves. They had grown to four times their original size in six days' time. And could they fight and squirm!

'Well anyway, that's all over and I now have my two pretty ones in their new home, which was at the time comfortably
arranged to house them. Yes, I say pretty ones, for they were sleek and shiny and they way they flirted their tails and
skimmed along the floor with their paws moving so fast you could hardly see them, was a pleasure; and their eyes were
never closed... I had built a big tank for them and you should have seen them swim and dive and go leaping out of the
water and come falling back with loud smacking splashes, like dolphins or seals. And taking such joy in life! I wish I
could show you that, but they have outgrown that tank now. I must build them a new one.

'I tell you I used to watch them by the hour and say to myself, "You're a public benefactor, you are. Here are the first
two healthy alligators in the world! Why has man been so cruel as to reserve his medical knowledge so much for himself
and his domestic animals? Wild life, too, needs some attention." You see, I hadn't an inkling of what I had really
succeeded in doing, but I was right nevertheless in one respect. I had given health to two alligators and I was the first
privileged human being to observe what a healthy alligator was like.

'I noticed many peculiarities that set off my healthy two from the rest of the sickly breed of alligators. They began, for
example, to show better growth in the chest. They swelled out something like geckos. You know how geckos look, those
small lizards. And with a better growth of the chest cavity went a different carriage of the head. The head rose from the

7
ground – from which the ordinary alligator does not seem to have the strength to raise it – and was held up a bit, thus
contriving to give the beasts the appearance of a neck. That bad posture that one notices in all alligators, crocodiles and
garvials and related species, is plainly just another symptom of their congenital heart trouble. They are all stricken down
with severe auto-intoxication. It is to be noticed, by the way, that they all have a bad breath. My alligators had a sweet
breath.

'The next noteworthy change in outward appearance was the heavier growth of those spinal processes. In fact, in the
common diseased alligator, there are no spinal processes to speak of, though along the tail are to be found some heavy skin-
growths forming a serrated ridge and indication perhaps what nature intended the beast to have there and which is actually
to be seen on my two specimens, namely, ridges that are part of the spine and that reach luxurious proportions. The tail,
too, longer and longer each day and there is nothing prettier to see than the way it curls and rolls in rich serpentine curves
and even in complete circles. You won't be able to see that now, because the quarters have become so cramped, but you
will see how, instead of terminating in a weak point, my healthy alligators have a developed a flat arrowhead on the end,
something like a whale's tail, only sharper.

'Mind you, those beasts of mine were now consuming each a good-sized sheep. And demanding more every day! And
though big around as cows and, of course, two or three times as long, they were still but tots, so to speak, being but a few
months old and still in the process of development. Especially curious was the ridge that grew along the back, and which,
between the shoulder blades and the hips, if I may be permitted such loose anatomical designations, seemed to rise higher
each day and to have greater internal structural support, for not only did the spine enter into its formation, but the ribs
actually grew out of the body and provided buttresses for it. For some weeks my patients appeared as if a heavy
mushroom-like parasol were sprouting out of their backs!

'"Now whatever can that be?" I used to wonder and continued to watch. But there were so many interesting things to see.
I must explain that with my beasts the size of elephants, ceased to be able to examine them very closely. I'll tell you the
way I go about it; the factory is along a rarely used surfaced road in a remote part of the country, and I drive up there every
day, formerly in my old used car, but now in a truck specially purchased, and loaded down with a couple of sheep or pigs
fresh from the slaughterhouse and with several tubs of fish. Before I installed a differential pulley, I had to drag this all up
to the roof and dump the whole business through the ventilator on it. I don't dare enter the place. Why, it was even
dangerous to do that much, for their lashing tails with that heavy and sharp arrowhead termination used to come whipping
around and crash through the window or rather whatever fragments of glass and iron bars remained in the window, and
came out thumping and feeling around on the roof. I guess they were curious to find out what was all the disturbance up
there. Or perhaps they knew it was feeding time and they wanted to show their appreciation of my solicitude. I often did
think they felt gratitude for me, their deliverer from the oppression of the heart trouble.

'Oh yes, I forgot to tell you how they began to show knobs on their snouts and how these knobs kept growing out and
formed what I can only describe feelers or whiskers, heavy things, flexible and curling like the trunk of an elephant, only
thinner and covered with a leathery integument. Well, one of these feelers came whipping out of the ventilator one day and
gave me a caress that tore through all my cloths and left a deep, bloody scar. As I say, I suppose it was a caress, but I was
so frightened that I jerked back. I believe that if it had been ill meant I wouldn't be here to tell about it. Yes, I'm pretty
nearly positive of the fact that they like me.

'Of late it has grown more and more difficult to get a good glimpse of them. It's been getting more and more dangerous
to go near the building and before I rigged up the rope system, I used to climb up to the roof with a ladder placed against the
rear of the building where there aren't any windows, and once on the roof, I'd make sure that nothing was protruding from
the ventilator and then I'd rush up and cast down my load and rush right back with another load. Once they were busy
eating it was fairly safe.

'Now and then I'd put my eye to a little opening I'd found and peer through. There were my beasts, growing larger
every day, greater now then elephants in the bulk of their torso and the parasol-like growth on their backs expanding and
expanding, and shaping itself out into two vast ovals, one on each side. Then, on day, it came to me, suddenly, what these
were: wings! Yes, sir, wings!

8
 'And suddenly, too, that day I realized what I possessed there, locked up in that old factory, I ran back to my car and
drove breakneck speed to New York and to the library. Why, of course, what else but dragons! And the stories and
pictures of those fabulous beasts proved to me that my alligators were not the only healthy alligators that had existed.
There had been at various times, but mostly in prehistoric days, other rare specimens of healthy alligators. How else
explain the fact that people had seen precisely such monsters as I have out there, and preserved the record of their existence
in story and art? Why, those Chinese dragons you see embroidered in silk were as like mine as two peas. Undoubtedly
there appears now and then, but exceedingly rarely, a sport or variant among the alligators or crocodiles, provided by chance
with a healthy heart, and so free from auto-intoxication.

'But to get back to the progress of my pets. They continued to develop and pretty soon I began to see their wings unfold,
with those enormous ribs of theirs strengthening them like ribbed Gothic vaulting. Hunched they are at the shoulders, and
then smooth down flat to the rear and wrapping against the lower body like enormous shields. You can see that they are
aching, now, to try out the wings – but there is no room in the factory. But now and they do a little tentative flapping, you
know like chickens, and then they subside, sadly. I tell you it breaks my heart to see them so confined. But that will be
remedied. Now they have begun to look awkward on the ground, trailing their immense wings, their size preventing them
from frisking around as they used to. They move back and forth like caged beasts and I can see that their tempers are
getting short and ugly.'

He paused suddenly and looked at his watch. 'Come, we've no time to waste. I'm to call for the delegation at a quarter
to three and then at the President's house at three sharp.'

'Say!' I exclaimed. 'This is all so terribly exciting that my head is simply whirling. What a story this is going to make!
We'll run a whole page of pictures! I was so carried away by Crabshaw's vivid story, that I never for a moment doubted his
veracity.

'Pictures?' Crabshaw cried. 'Pictures? Of course! Why did I never think of that? But I have been so feverishly excited.
We must take some now. Wait, let me get our camera. Pshaw! I wish I had kept a photographic record for their
development. Well, that will have to wait for the next group I operate on.'

I suggested calling up for one of our news photographers, but he vetoed the idea. For the present, he wanted no outsider
except me.

We drove out in a limousine Crabshaw had hired for the occasion. There was a curious strained atmosphere among the
occupants of the car. At first there had been solemn politeness, the stilted courtesy of duelists, which now and then one of
the former colleagues of Crabshaw would try to break by a weak attempt at humor. Crabshaw brushed these attempts aside
and set the conversation on the recent spell of hot weather, or the latest political news, and in that fashion the conversation
limped along until we had driven far out into New Jersey and had gone off the traveled highway and were bumping along a
forest road much in need of repair.

The professors sat with their hats on their knees, the president wiped the copious sweat from his brow, and Crabshaw,
thin and alert, kept leaning forward to give the driver directions.

Suddenly Crabshaw gave a cry. The car drove out into an open space and stopped abruptly. Before us were the heaped
ruins of what had once been a red-brick building of some size.

Disregarding our solicitous inquiries, Crabshaw continued to yell: "They've escaped! They've broken out! They're
gone!' We could not get any other intelligent statement from him.

He ran out and scrambled up over the masses of wreckage, the heaps of bricks, the twisted girders, and continued to let
forth one piercing scream after another. We sat in the car for a while, overcome by a powerful stench that, along with the
heat of the day, robbed our lungs of the breath they craved.

9
 The President, holding his kerchief to his nose, a gesture that his professional satellites imitated at once, made a muffled
nasal remark: 'Our friend has histrionic talents, too. Whew! If you agree with me, gentlemen, that we have seen enough,
let up be off. I can't breathe here.'

'Nor I ... nor I,' said the obedient professors.

But I followed Crabshaw up the heap of wreckage and looked down upon the interior of the building, where vast mounds
of trampled filth lay so thick on the floor that it almost obscured the existence of a flat concrete floor beneath. And the
odor was like that of the monkey-house at the zoo, only many times worse.

The President cried out: 'Crabshaw, I insist upon being driven back to my residence at once. Otherwise I shall
commandeer this car and leave you here.'

Crabshaw, his eyes popping out of his head, his voice cracked with sobs, shouted back: 'Come on up here, you fools!
There's evidence left here, at any rate. Look at the footprints!'

Two of the professors, more curious and bolder than the rest, mounted to where we stood and looked down upon the
scene below. But they had eyes only for the filth and not for its meaning or origin.

'The Augean stables had nothing on this,' one of them began.

'See those prints?' Crabshaw cried.

'I insist, Crabshaw,' bellowed the President, whereupon one of the professors dutifully declared:

'I've had enough,' and the other echoed that flat statement.

It made no difference to them how Crabshaw swore and begged and whined, with the tears flying from his eyes, his
mouth sputtering: 'Here you, Professor Albert, world-famous paleontologist, why didn't you measure the footprints? What
animal do they come from? Did you ever see such enormous holes as these claws have dug? And you, Professor Wiener!
Why do you stand like dummies? Do you turn up your noses because the evidence is not a million years old? Why, if this
were in the rocks of Montana, you'd be all over the ground, sniffing and measuring and preparing the write huge tomes.
What's the matter with you now?'

Gently I lead the hysterical man down from his mound of bricks and pulled him into the car. On the drive home he
remained silent except for an occasional remark to arouse the others with a sarcastic or pleading remark. To these the
President answered once, without looking at poor Crabshaw:

"I've never been so hoodwinked before ... so grossly insulted!'

And the scientists repeated: 'A plain fraud!'

'A salted mine,' said another, and one mentioned Cesnola and the fake antiquities he palmed off on the Metropolitan
Museum, and another mentioned Glozel, and the third thought of the Louvre and the crown of Artaphernes, and then they
reminded themselves of the Cardiff Giant.

In short, they passed in sarcastic review all the trickeries ever perpetrated upon science.

But all things have an end; eventually we unloaded our cargo of scoffers and proceeded on to Crabshaw's apartment.
The life had gone out of the man so that I could not desert him, but must see him safely home. As we rode on to his
apartment, I heard newsboys crying extras. Thought the moment was hardly propitious, I felt that my profession demanded
a copy. I stopped the car and called to one of the boys. No sooner had I spread out the sheet than I gave Crabshaw a
mighty slap on the shoulder, for I confess that my own first emotion was one of exultation:

'Look, man! Read this!' I cried.

MONSTERS ATTACK ATLANTIC CITY

10
 FOUR BATHING BEAUTIES AMONG MISSING

MANY SPECTATORS AT BATHING BEAUTY CONTEST ARE SLAIN AND MANY MAIMED BY FLYING
MONSTERS

As usual the actual news report was meager, for extras often have nothing more than a headline to sell. It is published
while the reporters hustle out to secure more complete information. The body of the article repeated in various forms the
following story:

Conflicting reports by telephone from Atlantic City tell of enormous flying monsters, birds or airplanes (eyewitnesses are
not in agreement on this point), attacking he crowd assembled to watch the final awards in the nation-wide competition for
the nomination of Miss America. Two or more scarlet colored birds of vast size swooped down on the panic-stricken
multitude, who dashed for cover in all directions. One informant declares he was reminded of the airplane attacks on
infantry that were a feature of the World War.

Whatever they were, beast or machine, they mutilated dozens of bystanders – and were gone. Their appearance and
disappearance were so rapid, their speed so enormous, that no one seems to have retained a clear notion as to precisely
what happened. The monsters seem to have swooped down out of the clouds and back again, carrying off some of he
victims and leaving the boardwalk strew with the dead and the dying.

The earliest reports from the hastily organized volunteer ambulance and medical corps -

I grew more and more serious as I read of the victims. But Crabshaw only expanded. He slapped his knee:

'Ha, ha! Those healthy youngsters! What an appetite! Think of that! Just swooped down from the clouds' - he
illustrated the maneuver with a swoop of his hand - 'snatched up those beauties and climbed right back out of human sight.
Wow! Think of it, man!' and he gave me a jovial dig in the ribs.

'I'm thinking of it, all right,' I said soberly.

But he was so delighted that he actually began to caper around the car. It was droll, but I could not laugh. I thought of
the dead and dying out there on the boardwalk and the four young girls who had come to exhibit their youth and beauty and
who had been snatched up beyond the clouds and devoured.

'Stop! Stop the car!' Crabshaw shouted. 'We must get dozens of those papers and clip out those articles and send them
to those benighted professional asses who came out there and refused to use their five senses.'

'Do nothing of the kind!' I cried and pulled Crabshaw back to his seat. 'Listen to me, you fool. Do you want the whole
world on your neck? Don't you realize what your dragons have done? They've killed, or injured for life, scores of people.
What will the world say of professor Crabshaw when it learns that his petty desire for vindication in the eyes of his
colleagues has caused wholesale murder? Take my advise and keep quiet about this and pray that it might blow over. Or
enjoy your bloody triumph if you like, but beware of proclaiming it. As far as I am concerned, not a word of your
connection with this gruesome business as Atlantic City will get into the newspapers.'

That sobered him. But only for a moment: then he wagged his head, tickled silly by the accomplishment of his pets.
'Husky youngsters!' he muttered over and over again to himself. Then he exclaimed out loud: 'Husky youngsters! Gad!
What will they do when they are full grown, can you imagine? Why, they're only kids now. They're not a year old yet.
And just out of the hospital, so to speak. Why, what will come of it, this is the first day they flew. Say, what do you
suppose they'll do when are big as battleships? Bigger, maybe. Wow!'

And he went on ruminating gleefully: 'Flying so perfectly on the first essay! Where is the human aviator who could
equal that! And say! By gosh, I never thought of that. Do you recall all the stories of the dragons demanding a tribute of
fair maidens? Well, there you see it. First thing they do is go after the beautiful virgins. Ha-ha! Just another proof for
you that those artists and poets are not just imbeciles, but as good scientific observers as any of us moderns. Fairly tales,

11
eh? I tell you Mr President, those fairy tales are true. And Crabshaw's fancies are as good as any of your old stodgy facts.
Maybe better, because dreams come true, while facts are always being challenged and disapproved.'

He went on thus while the car drove to his home. Just as we reached there, he let out a scream that nearly stopped my
heart.

'What's the matter now?' I gasped.

'Never thought of it!' he shouted. 'Never once occurred to me. Oh, this is rich! Just too perfect! Male and female
created He them. Yes, sir! One male and one female. Think of it, man. think of the race that will come from those
beasts! Why – why, it -' He stood there with an ecstatic smile on his uplifted face. It was as if he felt himself akin to the
Creator and was calling down a blessing upon Adam and Eve of the new race of dragons.

It occurred to me later, where I had heard people talk just like Crabshaw during that ride home. Parents, hard-working
parents of the poorer classes, who raise up their children to take the place in the world that they, the parents, would have like
to occupy, they speak thus. And for Crabshaw, his dragons, so strong, so unassailable, were his sons who were going to
wipe out with their strength all the disappointments that he had been forced to swallow.

No sooner had we alighted and dismissed the car than he declared: 'I'm not going upstairs. Please do me a favor: go up
and tell Elspeth not to expect me until late. Say nothing about the dragons, of course.'

'And what are you going to do?' I asked, displeased at his request.

'I've got something I must take care of,' he said mysteriously. And then, sensing that I was about to object, he pleaded
quickly: 'Go, please! Good Lord, am I to be balked all my life?'

I realized vaguely what he wanted to do, but his last words made me give in to his plea. And then what good would it
had done had I refused him? He would have put through his plan anyhow. The manner in which he clutched his camera
under his arm, and the light of fanatic determination in his eyes, were indicative of a firm resolve to go back to the ruined
factory in New Jersey, no doubt driving there in his own little car, in the hope that the darling alligators whom he had nursed
to health from their original heart trouble would return to roost there and he would be thus enabled to secure photographs of
them.

I let him go and regretted it; but I hold myself blameless, for short of locking him up behind iron bars, nothing could
have restrained him. I went up and made some excuse to Elspeth and then left to catch up on my neglected work. Of the
unsuccessful dragon expedition, I said nothing to anyone. I have done so would have been to expose Crabshaw. I was
rather surprised to find that the professors at the University suspected nothing of his connection with the disaster in
Atlantic City, but on second thought, this was only natural: such a connection must have appeared extremely far-fetched
and to have propounded it would have been to expose oneself to ridicule if it were proved false and again to ridicule, were it
proved true. In any case, the great publicity would have been Crabshaw's. Such must have been the motives of the
professors in keeping quiet, if indeed they had any thoughts on the matter at all. Afterwards, true enough, all sorts of crazy
things were propounded by professor and layman alike, and Crabshaw's name was mentioned, but those who had been in a
position ougt assure themselves of the justice of Crabshaw's claims and had neglected to do so, had nothing to gain by
speaking up; on the contrary -

When I called up Crabshaw on the afternoon of the following day, Elspeth answered, extremely agitated.

'What do you know about this?' she asked. 'Where is Paul?'

'Why? Didn't he come home?' I asked, my heart sinking at the thought of Crabshaw along with the dragons.

'No, he didn't come home,' she answered. 'But that's not what puzzles me so much as where he as been. I'm afraid
there's some sort of hoax afoot. Since yesterday, I have had three cablegrams, ostensibly from him all sent collect.'

'Cablegrams?'

12
 "Yes. One from London that came last night. The second one came early this morning and was from Alexandria. And
I just had another, just this moment. From Singapore, Malay States.'

'Well, what does he say?'

'He says the same thing in each one: DON'T WORRY STOP AM SAFE STOP BE HOME SOON.'

'Well, that sounds encouraging,' I said, for want of a better comment.

Elspeth, however, declared: 'Well, I can tell you this: I don't believe they come from Paul. He can't be all over the
world in one night. And I'm not going to pay for any more of them! Perhaps you can tell me what it's all about. What did
you two do yesterday?

'Why, nothing,' I said and blandly made whatever excuses I could think of quickly and then hung up. Actually, of
course, I had a good notion of what had happened. It was plain that he was riding through the clouds on the back of one or
the other of his flying alligators, and could stop them where he pleased. Flying from continent to continent, and over the
oceans ... Well, glory be to you, Paul! Now you are truly vindicated. Now you have your apotheosis. All the world will
bow to you when you come alighting in the middle of Broadway on your pet dragon!

I thought for a moment of proclaiming the arrival of Paul Crabshaw from the round-the-world hop done in one day. But
fortunately I thought better of it - in view of the recent disaster at Atlantic City, of which the papers were now full. But I
could not restrain my mind from waxing enthusiastic over the fact that it was plain that Paul had tamed the monsters. What
would not mankind be able to do with these domesticated dragons, who were so superior to airplanes? Perhaps Paul had
struck the right track, the new road, along which mankind was to progress by breeding or otherwise developing animals to
do the work of machines.

But he waited in vain for Paul Crabshaw to return. Elpeth paid for several more cablegrams from South America, from
Africa and from other outlandish places. Then the cablegrams ceased, which both pleased and disappointed the economical
Elspeth. And after that we never heard from Paul again...

As for the rest, it is history. The bruit of the Atlantic City disaster died down and for several years we heard nothing
more of monsters. Elspeth, bereaved, had gone away to nurse her sorrow and Paul Crabshaw's disappearance was soon
forgotten. I used to ponder over the probable fate of the dragons. Evidently their mighty hearts had given way and they
had fallen into the sea along with the doctor.

But they had only retired to remote regions, there to breed thousands of their kind. For soon the world awoke to the fact
that it was positively infested with dragons. There were, at first, rumors of dragons devouring the natives of interior Africa.
This was presumed to be false, like so many other jungle stories. And then there were rumors of dragons in South
America and China. These were dismissed as tropically over-heated imaginations and mere Chinese fantasies. And then
there were dragons in Europe, in France, in England, in the United States, in New York - and no one could doubt the truth of
it any more. The world was a prey to man-eating dragons!

Too late then to fight the vermin that had obtained such a foot hold in our world. Alas – no longer our world, but the
world of the dragons who have become supreme! Step by step, we have retreated and given up the globe which we had
brought so near to complete civilization, given it up to our successors in time. The human history of the earth is closing its
books.

Too late then for me to tell what I knew, and what I did, I found no one to believe me. No one would try my simple
explanation and see if alligators could really be cured of their heart trouble and become dragons. The mere suggestion was
dismissed at once on the grounds that acquired characteristics were not inherited, whereas these dragons bred true. In short,
the idea was too ridiculous to be discussed seriously. The explanation that science handed down was that some dragon
eggs, remaining for millions of years in the cold storage or the Arctic, had by chance been caught in the sweep of a glacier,
and been carried down in the slow glacial movement to the sea, had thence, along with an iceberg, been carried off to the
sea and had floated down into the warmth of the tropics. On some tropical island shore the dragon eggs, still by miracle

13
unbroken and unspoiled, had slowly been brooded to life by the warmth of the sun. This theory fitted in well with the old
tales of gigantic roc eggs and was generally accepted by science and laity alike.

I did not press my point, for what would be the value, at this late date, of knowing how to transform a comparatively
harmless alligator into a dragon? Making more dragons, even in the name of research, was the silliest ever of all schemes
to carry coals to Newcastle. Why, the world was full of them! Not a city, not a village, not the remotest hamlet but
suffered their depredations. The dread fowl came down like a hawk upon chickens and carried off men, women and
children, as well as cattle, and left only its horrid droppings as a final insult to the tragic survivors.

In vain mankind prayed. In vain ministers sermonized on the Beast of the Apocalypse, the beast whose number was 666.
In vain we turned to anti-aircraft guns, to explosive bullets, to poison gasses, to gigantic traps. In vain, our most
courageous aviators mounted the skies in pursuit of them. A thrash of their tails and man and his machine tumbled to the
earth, while his bullets rattled harmlessly off the armor-like hide of the beast. It was useless to fight. We were beaten.
And the wise ones were those who scurried off soonest to the best caves and mines. Farmers burrowed underground and
tilled their fields in the darkest nights and did not trouble themselves to grow any more food than they could use. Famine
added itself to the miseries of mankind. Our supply of coal gave out. Our electric power houses ceased to function.
Turbines still ran while there were volunteers to brave the danger of running them and of repairing power lines. As long as
our machines still held together they were used, but repairs grew more and more impossible. To work in the daylight was
suicidal. At night, light was forbidden, for it immediately attracted a dragon out of the sky.

Evidently they bred rapidly. Not twenty years after Crabshaw's first specimen, thousands were counted. And the world
of human life perished before their insatiable hunger, as once the world of animal life had perished before our advance.
What we had done to buffalo and passenger pigeons was repaid by us in full measure.

Oh, where is not the Saint George that is to rid us of our scourge? Where the scientist with serum of inoculation that
should wipe out these dragons? What? Will science fail us? Are we doomed, we, the last remnants of the human race
who now exist in perpetual fear? At first how many and how bright were the reports of what we would do to the dragons.
Reports of new types of guns. Of great steel spring nets. Of new and most potent gases, harmless to man but deadly to the
great saurians. Of disease germs that were to be spread among them and wipe them out in one vast epidemic. Of poisoned
bait ... Alas, all, all failed! Until even the most optimistic of us have lost heart...

We ceased to hope and made the best of things, and quietly blessed those valiant old New Yorkers who had constructed
that so often ridiculed megalopolis with its impregnable fortress of skyscrapers and its marvelous network of underground
passageways where we, besieged mankind, can make our last stand. Here we are safe for a time. That is to say, until
famine gets us. We stave off that as best we can by utilizing every rooftop and planting countless window-boxes and
developing whatever mushroom and other fungus growths will thrive in the dark. Here and there too, we grow food under
ultra-violet light, but current is almost priceless. How long can we last, seeing that our existence is ultimately dependent on
the constant excursions of volunteer corps who are rising their live for the community? Our numbers grow daily less. A
few, we are told by rare travelers, survive in the far north where dragons rarely go. A few survive in mines. No doubt
there must be other communities, say in London, and Berlin and other places where there are extensive subways, but its
years since we had any communication with them.

What is to be the end of all this, I ask myself. Are we to perish utterly? I think that I shall cause this tale to be engraved
on stone so that if ever the human race arises again, it may read and know how the damnable inferiority complex of one
Paul Crabshaw made all mankind the prey of fabulous monsters.

14