“Why, don’t you see, massa, it’s not comfortabil for a man what’s got any feelin’s to go troo de land huntin’ an’ killin’ cattle an’ oder brutes for noting. You can’t eat more nor one hox—p’r’aps not dat. So w’en you’ve kill ’im an’ eaten so much as you can, dar’s no more fun, for what fun is dere in slaughterin’ hoxes for noting? Den, if you goes arter bees an’ butterflies on’y for fun, w’y you git shamed ob yourself. On’y a chile do dat. But science, dat put ’im all right! Away you goes arter de bees and butterflies an’ tings like mad—ober de hills an’ far away—troo de woods, across de ribbers—sometimes into ’em!—crashin’ an’ smashin’ like de bull in de china-shop, wid de proud feelin’ bustin’ your buzzum dat you’re advancin’ de noble cause ob science—dat’s what you call ’im, ‘noble?’—yes. Well, den you come home done up, so pleasant like, an’ sot down an’ fix de critters up wid pins an’ gum an’ sitch-like, and arter dat you show ’em to your larned friends an’ call ’em awrful hard names, (sometimes dey seem like bad names!) an’—oh! I do lub science! It’s wot I once heard a captin ob a ribber steamer in de States call a safety-balve wot lets off a deal o’ ’uman energy. He was a-sottin on his own safety-balve at de time, so he ought to have know’d suffin about it.”
“I say, Ebony,” asked Hockins, “where did you pick up so much larnin’ about science—eh?”
“I pick ’im in Texas—was ’sistant to a German nat’ralist dar for two year. Stuck to ’im like a limpit till he a-most busted hisself by tumblin’ into a swamp, smashin’ his spectacles, an’ ketchin’ fever, w’en he found hisself obleeged to go home to recroot—he called it—though what dat was I nebber rightly understood, unless it was drinkin’ brandy an’ water; for I noticed that w’en he said he needed to recroot, he allers had a good stiff pull at de brandy bottle.”
Ebony’s discourse was here cut short by the sudden appearance of an enormous butterfly, which the excitable negro dashed after at a breakneck pace in the interests of science. The last glimpse they had of him, as he disappeared among the trees, was in a somewhat peculiar attitude, with his head down and his feet in the air!
“That’s a sign he has missed him,” remarked Hockins, beginning to fill his pipe—the tobacco, not the musical, one! “I’ve always observed that when Ebony becomes desperate, and knows he can’t git hold of the thing he’s arter, he makes a reckless plunge, with a horrible yell, goes right down by the head, and disappears like a harpooned whale.”
“True, but have you not also observed,” said Mark, “that like the whale he’s sure to come to the surface again—sooner or later—and generally with the object of pursuit in possession?”
“I b’lieve you’re right, doctor,” said the seaman, emitting a prolonged puff of smoke.
“Does he always go mad like that?” asked the Secretary, who was much amused.
“Usually,” replied Mark, “but he is generally madder than that. He’s in comparatively low spirits to-day. Perhaps it is the heat that affects him. Whew! how hot it is! I think I shall take a bath in the first pool we come to.”
“That would only make you hotter, sir,” said Hockins. “I’ve often tried it. At first, no doubt, when you gits into the water it cools you, but arter you come out you git hotter than before. A hot bath is the thing to cool you comfortably.”