This reasoning appealed to the Professor, a light-complexioned man of about thirty, who had once been an elementary schoolmaster.
“I agree with you, Jones,” he said. “Besides, the Book of Revelations is unscientific. There is something about a three-footed horse in it, isn’t there?”
“A pale horse,” said Septimus reprovingly. “A three-footed horse is a Jamaica duppy[[1]] story.”
“Even so,” said the Professor, “a horse cannot be pale.”
“What’s to hinder it?” asked the serious man. “If a man can be pale, a horse can be pale too. The pale horse in Revelations was a sign; an’ I tell you that everything y’u read in that book is coming true. I wouldn’t leave Jamaica now, me brother! All we can do in these last days is to watch and pray. I think I’ll take a little rum.”
He took it, then—“It’s rather hard,” he said, “that after a man spend his whole life looking after his family, a comet should come like this to destroy him. What have I done?”
Jones found the conversation distinctly depressing, though there was no denying that many persons in the room were listening to it with very serious faces. He was going away next day, and he began to fear that, at sea, he might be more directly exposed to danger from the comet than those on land.
“I like to talk about big scientific things, meself,” he said, “but I don’t see the good of talkin’ about the end of the world.”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” said the serious man. “It’s not everybody who can face these questions like me. You know, I was brought up very religious. Me gran’mother was a very strict woman; she used to make me say me prayers every morning, an’ she flog me whenever I didn’t want to go to Sunday school. That’s why I turn out so well.”
This claim to superiority nettled Jones. “I have been brought up religious meself,” he said, a little indignantly. “Suppose we have a game of billiards?”