THE SCHOLAR (with condescension).
But, my dear man, I feel I must admit
To such a native modicum of wit,
By this, plus luck, if such a thing there be,
A man may wrest his living from the sea;
But on the troublous sea as on the land.
Note what we owe the scientific hand.
The world's dark secrets have been opened out
By men who forged their faith from honest doubt.
Who rounded out the universe for us
But Galileo and Copernicus?
Who gave us chart and compass, sextant, log,
And apparatus for detecting fog
And wind and currents? Who gave us thermometers?
Again, I ask; who, prisms and barometers?
THE SALT (snortingly).
A man that owns a hand can use a log,
An idiot with one eye can see a fog
When it is comin'.
THE SCHOLAR.
But no wit surmises
The calculated way the wind uprises;
The place it comes from, whereunto it goes,
Nor tell you to the mile the rate it blows,
A full seven days ahead. But Science draws
Exact determinations of the laws
That govern wind and waves; though, to be sure,
In charting atmospheric temperature
She may, for uninformed mentalities,
Use terms like unexplained contingencies.
But still, when all her facts are massed together,
Unerring is her forecast of the weather;
In our metropolis we have a man
Who plots it every day.
THE SALT (fired by reminiscence).
Like hell he can.
Whenever that fool bulletin comes out,
With cock-sure talk about the heat and drought
That's bound to last a week, I always ask
The missus for me flannels and a flask
Of gin to keep me goin' through the day.
And when it says—"Look out for frost, 'twill stay
Three days or more," I know we'll have a spurt
Of heat would boil a man inside his shirt.
Its everlasting fable—"Fair and warm"
Means "brewin' for the devil of a storm."
THE SCHOLAR (with righteous warmth).
This open and unshamed prevarication
Perturbs my soul with moral agitation.
A votary of Truth I shall abide,
That Wisdom of her child be justified.