"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my business.  This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any other creature known to zoology.  It belongs to a very large, a very strong, and, by all analogy a very fierce animal which exists upon the face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science.  You are still unconvinced?"

"I am at least deeply interested."

"Then your case is not hopeless.  I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we may patiently grope around for it."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World