“Well, Ebony,” asked Orlando, “what conclusions do you draw from that dream?”
“I di’nt draw no kungklooshins from it ’cos I dunno what de are. Nebber hab notin’ to do wid what I don’ understan’. But what I was t’ink was dis: in de days ob old, some time after Adam an’ Eve was born, a sartin king, called Fair-ho, or some sitch name (Waroonga there knows all about him) had a dream, that siven swine came up—”
“Kine, Ebony—not swine,” interrupted the missionary, with a good-humoured smile, “which is all the same as cows.”
“Well, den, siven fat cows come up out ob a ribber, an’ hoed slap at siven thin cows—mis’rable skinny critters that—”
“All wrong, Ebony,” again interrupted Waroonga. “It’s just the other way. The skinny ones went at the fat ones.”
“Well, ob course you must be right,” returned the negro, humbly, “though I’d have ’spected it was t’other way. But I s’pose the skinny ones was so hungry that the fat ones hadn’t a chance wid ’em. However, it don’t matter. What I was goin’ to say was that a good man, called Joseph, went to Fair-ho an’ ’splained all his dream to him. Now, if Joseph could do dat, why shouldn’t Waroonga ’splain my dream to me?”
“Because I’s not Joseph, Ebony, an you’re not Pharoah,” returned Waroonga promptly.
Tomeo and Buttchee turned looks of inquiry on Ebony as if to say, “What d’ye say to that, you nigger?” But the nigger said nothing for some moments. He seemed not to have viewed the matter in that light.
“Well, I don’no,” he said at last with a deep sigh, “I t’ought I’d get hold ob suthin’ when I kitch hold ob dat dream. But, I do b’lieve myself, dat part of it means dat Zeppa hims git on an island, anyhow.”
“If my dear father got upon anything, it must have been an island,” said Orlando sadly.