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to continue your work. These animals ain’t got two cents to rub to-gether. If you don’t operate on ’em, they won’t never have no money, but if you do operate then maybe they’ll be able to get some.”
    “Forget it.”
    “Why are you being so stubborn?” I said.
    “Because I don’t know how to turn then back!” he bellowed. “That’s what I need the money for — to pay my expenses until I learn how!”
    There was an angry trumpeting outside the building, and Doctor Mirbeau suddenly turned even whiter than his suit.
    “What was that?” he asked in a shaky voice.
    “If I was a betting man,” I said, “I’d lay plenty of eight-to-five that Felicity heard every word you just said with them oversized ears of hers, and that she is more than a little bit displeased with you.”
    “Oh my God!” he whispered.
    “I got a feeling God’s otherwise occupied at the moment,” I answered as a couple of lions began roaring, “but I’ll be sure to tell Him you called.”
    Pretty soon some monkeys began screaming, and then a few eagles and leopards chimed in, and Ramon began howling, and it was pretty clear that it wasn’t so much an island of lost souls as deeply annoyed and exceptionally noisy ones.
    “Save me, Doctor Jones!” he cried.
    “I thought I was your prisoner,” I said.
    “Don’t quibble over technicalities,” he said. “Save me and everything I have is yours!”
    “As far as I can tell, everything you have is an island a trillion miles from anywhere and a bunch of angry animals that want your scalp,” I said. “Somehow it don’t seem like much of an inducement.”
    He held up his right hand. “See this ring? That’s a six-carat diamond! Save me and it’s yours!”
    “It’s a mighty pretty bauble,” I said. “But I could just sit back and pick it up when they finish dismembering you.”
    “What kind of Christian are you?” he demanded.
    “A live one,” I said as a jaguar leaped onto the roof and began pacing back and forth. “I’ll ask you the same question thirty minutes from now.”
    “All right,” he said. “There’s five thousand dollars in my safe. You can have half.”
    “Half?”
    “Surely you don’t insist on all of it?” he said.
    “I don’t insist on any of it,” I told him. “I think I’ll just watch them hunt you down and rip you to shreds like a naked mole rat, except for the mole rat part.”
    “All right!” he said. “It’s all yours! Just save me!”
    “It’s a deal,” I said. “Though officially and for tax purposes you’re giving the money to the Lord; I’m just holding it for Him until Him and me can build our Tabernacle. Now go hunt up the money while I run a couple of plans past Him and see which one He prefers.”
    As soon as he left the room the gorilla walked up to me.
    “Are you really going to save him?” he asked.
    “It’s the only way to make sure all you animals get turned back into people,” I said.
    “I’m not going under the knife again!” he said. “Why suffer the pain when I wouldn’t look one bit different when it was all over?”
    I looked at the gorilla, and thunk about what he said, and then my Silent Partner smacked me right betwixt the eyes with one of His heavenly revelations.
    “You’ve got a strange and inscrutable expression on your face, Doctor Jones,” said the gorilla.
    “You got a name?” I asked him suddenly.
    “Horace,” he said. It was the first time I ever saw a gorilla look embarrassed.
    “What city are you wanted in, Horace?” I said.
    “It’s not so much a city as a country,” he said. “Things are different here than in the States.”
    “Okay,” I said. “What country can’t you show your face in?”
    “Brazil,” he said.
    “All right,” I said. “That’s no problem.”
    “Peru,” he continued. “Uruguay. Paraguay. Argentina. Chile.”
    “You been a busy boy, Horace,” I said.
    “And Iceland.”
    “Iceland?” I said.
    “I have relatives in Iceland,” he