The Young Doctor liked talking to Patsy Kernaghan better than to any other person in Askatoon. He was always sure to be stimulated by a new point of view, but he never failed to provoke Kernaghan by scepticism.
“One wild bird from ‘Pernambukoko’ does not make a zoological garden, Patsy,” he said with an air of dissent.
“Well, that’s true for you, Doctor dear,” answered Kernaghan, “but this gardin’s got a bunch of specimens for all that. Listen to me now. Did ye ever notice the likeness between the faces of people and of animals an’ things that fly? You never did? Well, be thinkin’ of it now. Ivry man and wumman here at Tralee looks like an animal or a bird in a zoolyogical gardin. Shure, there’s no likeness between anny two of them; it’s as if they was gathered from ivry corner of the wide wurruld. There’s a Mongolian in the kitchen an’ slitherin’ about outside, doin’ the things that’s part for man and part for wumman. Li Choo they call him. Isn’t his the face of a bald-headed baboon? An’ the half-breed crature—she might ha’ come from Patagony. An’ the ould man Mazarine—part rhinoceros and part Methody, he is. An’ what do ye be thinkin’ of him they call Giggles, that almost guv his life to save the ould behemoth! Doesn’t he remind you of the zebra, where the wild Hottentots come from—smart and handsome, but that showy, all stripes and tail and fetlock! D’ye unnerstand what I mean, y’r anner?”
“Have you finished calling names, Kernaghan?” asked the Young Doctor in a low tone. “Have you really finished your zoological list?”
Kernaghan’s eye flashed. “Aw, Doctor dear,” said he, “manny’s the time in County Inniskillen, where you come from, you’ve seen a wild thing, bare-footed, springin’ from stone to stone on the hillside, wid her hair flyin’ behind like the daughter of a witch or somethin’ only half human-so belongin’ to the hills an’ the bogs an’ the cromlechs was she. Well, that’s the maid that’s mistress of Tralee—belongin’ as much to the Gardin of Eden as to this place here. There’s none of them here that belongs. Every wan of them’s been caught away from where he ought to be into this zoolyogical gardin.”
“Well, there’s one good thing about a zoological garden, Patsy Kernaghan,” said the Young Doctor; “it’s generally a safe place for the birds and animals in it.”
“But suppose some wan—suppose, now, the Keeper got drunk and let loose the popylashin’ of the gardin upon each other, d’ye think would it be a Gardin of Eden?” Suddenly Patsy’s manner changed. “Aw, I tell you this, then: I don’t like what I see here, an’ I like it less an’ less ivry day.”
“What don’t you like, Patsy?” asked the other quizzically.
“I don’t like the way the old fella watches that child he calls his wife. I don’t like the young fella bein’ the cause of the old man’s watchin’.”
“What has happened? What has he done?” asked the Young Doctor a little anxiously.