Two of the fishy-eyed humans in white coats had been babbling near Monkey's cage. They were spouting the usual nonsense that Monkey could never understand. With a start, he stopped munching his food and began to listen. Their sounds were crystallizing into word patterns, some of which made sense.

"Hmm-HMMMM!!" thought Monkey.

One of the humans pointed to Monkey.

"Take this chimp over here," he said. "He's been receiving regular injections of pitrusimian every day now for four months. If our hypothesis is correct, his physical growth will be retarded, but his intelligence will increase proportionally to that particular deficiency. He'll be one smart, little ape. The drug effects the anterior lobe of the pituitary so that ..." Much of their conversation involved big scientific words, but Monkey was able to grasp a few of the ideas.

Those humans are talking about sticking me full of needles, thought Monkey. Monkey kept turning one haunting phrase over and over in his head. One smart little ape, one smart little ape...