“You’d be too, Johnny, if—” Pant did not finish.
“Well, Johnny,” he began again a half minute later, “I’ve got a brother. Didn’t know it, did you?”
“No I—”
“I have, Johnny. And like myself, he’s a bit queer, only in a different way. He’s a naturalist of a sort. He hunts up all kinds of queer animals. And Ethiopia’s the place to look for them. You’d hardly believe the truth, Johnny, antelopes no taller than a good sized cat, crows with great, thick bills, monkeys with capes growing on their backs to keep off the rain, and baboons! All sorts of man-like creatures! That’s Ethiopia. My brother went down there to hunt out these creatures. He got himself lost and I had to go find him.
“It’s a strange place, Johnny, awfully strange. Things happen that you don’t forget, you’ll never forget.” Pant’s eyes sought the dark corners of the room. His slim fingers toyed nervously with his coffee cup.
“Did you find your brother?” Johnny asked.
Pant did not appear to hear. Perhaps he did not. There are times in all our lives when we are living so much in the past that nothing close to us seems real.
“There are spots in that strange land,” Pant went on as if Johnny had not spoken. “Spots so beautiful you fancy they may have been the Garden of Eden. Beautiful? Yes, beautiful beyond compare—“ Pant drew in a long, deep breath. “Just imagine, Johnny, passing through a tropical jungle. You can imagine, can’t you? Remember—”
“Yes,” Johnny said quietly, “I remember Central America. The mahogany forests, tangled bushes and vines. The hush of night at noonday in the deep shade of the forests, the bright flash of birds, the damp, sweet smell of a thousand flowers.”
“Yes, Johnny,” Pant sighed, “you do remember. And, Johnny, African jungles are wilder, ruggeder, grander, more lonely. Johnny,” his voice fell, “imagine all that, then try to think what it would be like to catch a sound, a voice, singing beautifully. Not a bird’s voice, Johnny, a human voice, a girl’s voice.