“How are you getting on with his language, Doctor?” I asked presently.
“I watched Chee-Chee’s head nodding sleepily”
“Oh, so so,” he grumbled. “It’s odd—awfully strange. At first I supposed it would be something like most human languages, a variation of vocal sounds. And I tried for hours to get in touch with him along those lines. But it was only a few vague far-off memories that I could bring out. I was, of course, particularly interested to link up a connection with some earthly language. Finally I went on to the languages of the insects and the plants and found that he spoke all dialects, in both, perfectly. On the whole I am awfully pleased with my experiments. Even if I cannot link him up with some of our own dead languages, at least his superior knowledge of the insect and vegetable tongues will be of great value to me.”
“Has he said anything so far about why he got you up here?” asked Polynesia.
“Not as yet,” said the Doctor. “But we’ve only just begun, you know. All in good time, Polynesia, all in good time.”
THE TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER
How Otho Bludge Came to the Moon
The Doctor’s warning to the parrot that perhaps we were just as terrifying to the Moon Man (in spite of his size) as he and his world were to us, proved to be quite true. After breakfast was over and I got out the usual notebook for dictation it soon appeared that this giant, the dread President of the Council, was the mildest creature living. He let us crawl all over him and seemed quite pleased that we took so much interest in him. This did not appear to surprise the Doctor, who from the start had regarded him as a friend. But to Chee-Chee and myself, who had thought that he might gobble us up at any moment, it was, to say the least, a great relief.
I will not set down here in detail that first talk between the Moon Man and the Doctor. It was very long and went into a great many matters of languages and natural history that might not be of great interest to the general reader. But here and there in my report of that conversation I may dictate it word for word, where such a course may seem necessary to give a clear picture of the ideas exchanged. For it was certainly an interview of great importance.
The Doctor began by questioning the giant on the history that Chee-Chee had told us as it had been handed down to him by his grandmother. Here the Moon Man’s memory seemed very vague; but when prompted with details from the Monkeys’ History, he occasionally responded and more than once agreed with the Doctor’s statements or corrected them with a good deal of certainty and firmness.