“No,” I replied. “The ways of Providence are beyond our comprehension. But one thing has struck me, that come what may to me, you will not go unpunished. I’d rather be in my fix than yours. You’ll probably have all eternity in which to regret this abominable performance.”
He showed no dismay.
“You are an obstinate soul, Tarver, and a pluckier man than I thought. But you’ll have to cut it—you’ll have to cave in. We’ll try what a few hours in the python will do for you. And all this fuss because you won’t marry a good woman.”
“You call it fuss!” I screamed indignantly. But then, thinking that my excitement was caused by hunger, the keepers came and led me to my parent, by which I mean the maternal hippopotamus.
There are things that cannot be written.
As a python I ate live rabbits and lived the ordinary disgusting life of that reptile. The animals into which I migrated, having no conscious existence of their own, were powerless to resent their visitor. Not one of my hosts appeared aware of my presence, not one showed the least concern about me. From the python I passed on to the tarantula, and after abandoning that atrocious insect, I became a monkey. This was a last refinement of cruelty on the part of Robinson, for he had heard more than once my openly expressed dislike of these beasts. Moreover, I was very unattractive; and yet a gleam of hope animated me under this affliction, for I conceived that with a pencil and paper I might now explain my position to some sympathetic third person. But though the public offered me many things, a pencil and paper were not amongst them. My companions, seeming to know that something was amiss, bullied me, cuffed me, pulled my tail, pretended to catch fleas on me, and generally made my life purgatory; while, to crown all, an ape’s intelligence being apparently superior to that of most other animals, the beast I inhabited evidently felt that he was out of sorts. I cannot say what he thought was wrong with him or how he explained the problem, but he had a will of his own, and evil passions, and a bad disposition—all of which I found myself powerless to keep in check. After two days of this infernal life Robinson dropped in again and I was thankful to hear him speak from the throat of a spider monkey; for my spirit was broken, I could wait for Providence no longer. I had, in fact, determined to yield.
Robinson sidled up to me with a nut in his cheek, winked wickedly, put a paw on my shoulder and spoke.
“Gay doings in this department, eh, Tarver?”
“We needn’t discuss them,” I said. “I give in. I will marry your sister.”
“That’s awkward,” he answered. “In fact, you’ve run the time too fine, old man. You can’t now. Why, when I came home from town to-day and kissed Primrose as usual and asked her what she’d been doing, d’you know what she said?”