Talking Mongoose Refused To Live As A Prisoner To Your Hidebound Taxonomy

“Gef — who spelled his name phonetically, ‘because he didn’t know how to spell,’ Mr. Josiffe says — self-identified as a mongoose, but Mr. Josiffe has plenty of doubts. ‘The whole thing about a talking mongoose is a red herring,’ he says. Given the Irvings’ descriptions, he says Gef was smaller than a mongoose, perhaps a weasel or a squirrel.”