"Do you take me for a traitor who forsakes his tent-companion?" returned Fink.
"It is quite dry here," continued Lenore, "only that a drop falls now and then upon my nose; but you, poor you, will be wet through out there. What fearful rain!"
"Does this rain terrify you?" inquired Fink, shrugging his shoulders. "It is but a weak infant, this. If it can break off a twig from a tree, it thinks it has done wonders. Commend me to the rain of warmer climates. Drops like apples—nay, not drops at all, streams as thick as my arm! The water rushes down from the clouds like a cataract. No standing, for the ground swims away beneath one's feet: no taking shelter under a tree, for the wind breaks the thickest trunks like straw. One runs to his house, which is not farther off, perhaps, than from here to that good for nothing stump that hurt your foot, and the house has vanished, leaving in its place a hole, a stream, and a heap of well-washed stones. Perhaps, too, the earth may begin to shake a little, and to raise waves like those of the sea in a storm. That is a rain which is worth seeing. Clothes that have been wet through by it never recover; what was once a great-coat is, after a whole week's drying, nothing more than a black and shapeless mass—in aspect and texture like to a morel. If one chances to be wearing such a coat, it sticks on fast enough indeed, but it never can be got off except by the help of a penknife, and in narrow strips, peeled away as one peels an apple!"
Lenore could not help laughing in spite of pain. "I should much like to have experience of such a rain as that," said she.
"I am unselfish in not wishing to see you in such a plight," replied Fink. "Ladies fare worst of all. All that constitutes their toilette vanishes entirely in torrents such as these. Do you know the costume of the Venus of Milo?"
"No," said Lenore, distressed.
"All women caught in a tropical rain look exactly like that lady, and the men like scarecrows. Nay, sometimes it happens that human beings are beaten down flat as penny-pieces, with a knob in the middle, which, on closer examination, proves to be a human head, and mournfully calls out to passers-by, 'Oh, my fellow-beings, this is what comes of going out without an umbrella!'"
Again Lenore could not help laughing. "My foot no longer hurts me so much; I believe that I could walk."
"That you shall not do," replied Fink. "The rain has not abated, and it is so dark that one can hardly see one's outstretched hand."
"Then do me the kindness of going to look for the others. I am better now, and I crouch here like a roe, hidden alike from rain and robbers."