A Strange Discovery

by Charles Romyn Dake

Castleton, who was overflowing with joyous excitement, informed me that the dreaded yellow fever of the South was on its way North; and that if I would delay my return to England for a week or ten days I could see it. His remark did not much alarm me. Then I proceeded to tell him in outline what had become of Ahpilus, of the marriage of Lilama and Pym, and of the wedding-tour of the islands. As I closed, he said:

"Young man, you will soon be returning to England, that lordly nation to whose hind-quarters the sun is kinder than to its head-quarters. When you get home tell your countrymen of the discoveries you have here made. Tell them of the wonders of Hili-li—but be careful. This fellow Bainbridge is a romantic youth, and he is liable to lead you astray in some important respects. Tell your noble countrymen of the central crater—that, no doubt, Peters saw; as to the Hili-lites being descendants of the pure stock of ancient Rome, that, too, I believe. But do not repeat this foolish theory about love which he introduces into Peters' narrative. The wise, practical, and puissant residents of that Corinthian Capital of Brains—I refer to London—will know better. Oh, yes; women are true!—very true! Better than wealth—pshaw! better than empire—pooh! That nonsense will pass at twenty-five; at forty a man has some brains. The 'constancy' of women—that gets me! Why, sir, I once loved three women at the same time, and not one of the three was true to me—yet Bainbridge talks of a woman's constancy, single-heartedness, and such chimerical stuff—the kind of stuff, that, with youth, takes the place of the recently discarded nursery fiction. I think of the hundreds of women that I have loved, beginning in my early boyhood, passing through my adolescence to the acme of my powers, and even now as I stand on the verge of my desuetude! Surely some one of these many women would have been constant, if women have any constancy in their make-up. Show me a woman howling out her life on my grave, and then I'll believe Bainbridge. But I know all about Bainbridge. I know where he goes the evenings that he doesn't come here. Never mind—I'm silent as the grave. I don't need to tell a man of your superlative acumen what Bainbridge's talk implies. He mustn't talk to me though about woman's constancy and single-heartedness till he's ten years older; let him tell that stuff to Peters and the other mariners."

After some further talk, Castleton remarked:

"It seems, then, according to Bainbridge, that we moderns owe about all we have to the Jew and the Dago! Now, men less intelligent than you and I, after looking at the average Jew and Dago as seen to-day in the United States, would doubt this assertion. I cannot dispute it, however; for through the ancient Jew certainly came Christianity, and through the ancients in Greece and Italy our art."

He paused for a moment, and then continued:

"A delightfully euphonious set of names those Hili-lites possess. The name _Hi_li-li is not bad itself: _Hi_li-li, _Hi_li-lite, _Hi_li-_li_land—pretty good. Li-la-ma, Ah-pe-lus, Di-re-gus, Me-do-sus, Ma-su-se-li-la—all pretty fair. I have no doubt that Bainbridge would spell them so as to produce a Latin appearance. And this reminds me of a certain name not Latin."

I saw that the doctor was about to recount a "personal experience." He continued:

"One day a stranger came to our town—a plain, clean-looking, blue-eyed sort of scientific fellow from somewhere so far out in the suburbs of Europe that the name of his country or province has wholly slipped my memory—a mighty rare thing, by the by, and it always galls me when I forget anything. This chap came here to look at coal, or to hammer rocks, or to look for curiosities. Well, he ran up against me. Don't ask me his name—I believe he spelled it S-c-h-w-o-j-k-h-h-j-z-y-t-y-h-o B-j-h-z-o-w-h-j-u-g-h-s-c-h-k-j. One day he asked me to introduce him to a certain Bellevue capitalist. The fellow had pleased me, and I agreed to do the introducing—partly, I admit, to see whether a man that gutteralled his words out of his stomach could swindle one of our own sharpers that talked through his nose. But now came the rub: how was I to introduce a man when I couldn't utter his name? I used to practice at pronouncing that name as I rode around in my buggy, but it was no go. At last the day came when I was to introduce the fellow with a surplus of knowledge, to the fellow with a surplus of cash. That morning I awoke with the worst sorethroat of my life. I felt as if I had two boiled potatoes in my throat. The passage from my nose to my windpipe was closed for repairs, and that from my mouth to my throat was seven-eighths closed. Pretty soon, just from recent habit, I began to practise on the scientific chap's name. Great Scott! I could pronounce it better than its owner could. There were certain grunts and sneezes in the name—particularly one syllable between a grunt and a sneeze—that I suppose no Anglo-Saxon had ever before or has ever since uttered correctly; but they were nothing to me, so long as my sorethroat lasted."

Then Castleton rushed from the room; calling back from the head of the stairs, and in tones intentionally audible to every man and woman on that floor of the hotel:

"It's coming, sir, depend upon it—the genuine yellow fever—evaded the New Orleans quarantine three weeks ago—three cases at Shreveport and two at Memphis reported—talk, too, of a case in St. Louis. Heavens! but I hope a beneficent Creator will not allow some other doctor to get the first case, when, happily, it shall have reached Bellevue."