“You understand, Anne? There are undoubtedly certain resemblances to the Java skull, but superficial⁠—superficial only. No, here we have what I have always maintained⁠—the ancestral form of the Neanderthal race. You grant that the Gibraltar skull is the most primitive of the Neanderthal skulls found? Why? The cradle of the race was in Africa. They passed to Europe⁠—”

“Not marmalade on kippers, papa,” I said hastily, arresting my parent’s absentminded hand. “Yes, you were saying?”

“They passed to Europe on⁠—”

Here he broke down with a bad fit of choking, the result of an immoderate mouthful of kipper bones.