“By the snakes that walk, sir. The snakes that still have speech, plainly as the first snake that ever wagged his three-forked lie, sir. The vipers that kill a man’s reputation; the snakes that trail their slime over his daily bread.”
“My dear George,” said Mrs. Dodo, soothingly.
“Be quiet, Charlotte. Stung as I have been, when I can get a gentleman to hear me—for that’s a comfort not always granted—when I can get a gentleman with a heart in his face to listen to me, it does my soul good to tell my wrongs—to tell my wrongs;” and the poor man trembled, and grew very pale. Then, putting down his emotion with a strong will, he proceeded, as he believed calmly, to narrate his injuries. And thus he now muttered, and now gasped them.—“You see, sir, there is a fellow in this town, named Jericho,”—Carraways was about to stop Dodo, but Basil by a look, forbade him,—“a sort of man-devil, sir; man-devil. A fiend with bowels made at the Bank, and just smeared with a paste of flesh to seem human. Well, this demon was shot through the heart. I saw it, sir. I looked through the perforation; could have run my cane through the hole; a hole as clean as a hole in a quoit; and the devil walked away alive, and is alive yet; though shredding away, sir; shredding like scraped horseradish. Well, sir, not to fatigue you, I proclaimed what I had seen. I rose before the world; and—I never denied the truth in my life, never when I was a bachelor, and shall I do it now, with ten children to blush for me?—and I denounced this Jericho to be the devil that I know he is. I made oath that I had seen the sunlight through what ought to have been the left ventricle of the demon’s heart; and what, sir; what was my reward—what my return by the world? Why the world called me lunatic, madman! My patients fell from me in a day. A few hours, and my hand was unblessed with a single guinea. The devil Jericho threw gifts about him; and all society turned itself into a knot of vipers, and stung my reputation—killed my practice—poisoned my bread. And so, sir”—and Dodo gasped for breath, and strove for serenity,—“and so, I have resolved to leave the land. We all go,”—and Dodo smiled—“all, mother and myself, the nine here, and the one at the breast. I’ve brought ’em—dear hearts!—to show ’em their berths. I’m afraid, I’ve tired you; good morning, sir. Come along, Charlotte; come along, my loves. We go where there are no snakes—no snakes.” And poor Doctor Dodo, with his meek and melancholy wife, descended to the deck; and thence, followed by the nine children, dived to the sleeping shelves below.
“Poor dear man!” said Mrs. Carraways; and then she added—“but I’m so glad he’s going with us. If one is never ill, still Gilbert, it always gives one confidence to have a doctor of the party.”
“To be sure, my love,” answered Gilbert. “A doctor may be an excellent warranty of health. For the very reason that he’s at hand, we may resolve to do without him, eh?” And Carraways looked waggishly in his wife’s face; and seemed to take a new stock of good spirits from the happiness he saw there. Indeed, all the four were in the blithest mood. And we may say of Bessy, wherever she looked she seemed to carry light and pleasure with the glance.
They were about to descend, when from the dark state-cabin came a long gurgling laugh that made them all pause. “I’m sure I know that laugh,” cried Mrs. Carraways.
“Oh! I’m certain it’s she,” avowed Bessy, gravely confident. “It must be”—and it was—Jenny Topps. She ran out like a kitten after her tail upon the deck, and then looking up, caught the faces of her friends. Whereupon, Jenny bobbed a deep curtsey, blushed, and immediately put her arm under the protecting arm of Topps as he lounged out from the cabin. Instantly, Topps himself was as much confused as his wife; which confusion he signified, by taking off his hat, and without a word smoothing down his hair.
“Why, Robert, what brings you here?” asked Carraways, descending the ladder.
“Why, sir—please, sir,” answered Robert, “come to see the ship, sir;” and Robert looked at Jenny.—“That’s all, sir; nothing more, sir.”
“Now, Robert, you know I hate dogmatism”—Robert bowed—“nevertheless, I must know what brings you here. Come, tell me; what is it?”