We rode north over the plain for several miles, coming finally to a large barn built down in a grassy arroyo. A portion of the arroyo had been fenced, and within the fence were some of the most discouraged-looking animals I had ever seen: they looked vaguely like cattle, and even more vaguely like buffalo; they were dull-colored, with spindly legs, swollen midsections, and heads no larger than a calf’s. Most of them were dreadfully pigeon-toed and walked as if they might pitch over at any moment.

“These are our cattalo,” Cecily said. “I’m only glad Mr. Darwin isn’t here to see them. I’m afraid they represent rather a downward step on the ladder of evolution.”

Inside the great airy barn, admirably lit by a number of ingenious skylights, other downward steps were preserved in huge glass vats of formaldehyde—embryos of such complex deformity it was hard to tell in some cases what species had been crossed.

On a platform at one end of the barn were fourteen stuffed ponies, each with a brass nameplate in front of it and a small saddle on it. All the ponies were black.

“The Cavendish ponies,” Cecily informed me. “My mother was sentimental about her childhood and insisted on bringing them.”

Except for the embryos and a few bins of miscellaneous skulls, the barn was rather a pleasant place, and the aquarium, which was the size of a small cottage, quite remarkable indeed; it had both fresh-and salt-water compartments and contained an octopus, many great goggle-eyed fish, turtles and terrapins in abundance, and hundreds of Cecily’s beloved mollusks.

“Of course, it’s a great expense, hauling salt water this far inland, but I do believe I’d go daft without my mollusks,” Cecily said.

A little stone building behind the barn housed a well-equipped laboratory. Cecily put on a scientist’s smock, pried a couple of barnacles loose from a rock in the aquarium, and proceeded to give me an extensive lecture on their reproductive systems, most of which passed well over my head. All I saw was a squirmy mass; but I was grateful that the fires of science had rendered Cecily a good deal less chilly.

In another mood I might have taken a keen interest in the museum of failures, but my mind kept slipping back to Joe Lovelady. There was so much I wanted to ask him, now that I couldn’t. I couldn’t fathom why he had returned so meekly to his death—unless his fatigue itself was so deep as to be a kind of death.

“Oh, we might as well go, you’re very dull today, Ben,” Cecily said. “I’ll say one thing for old Willie, he’s very rarely dull. He can look at an animal—they interest him as much as they interest me.”