Whetstone.
One moment, Major Bluegrass: that will do for the home market, but not among strangers. I’ve given you both a summer vacation, so that you may enjoy yourselves, and work harder when you return. Now, look around, store up knowledge, and—I won’t deduct the time from your salaries. That’s business. But you must be more particular about my titles. Always speak of me to strangers as the Honorable Mayor Hercules Whetstone, the Merchant Prince of Cornville, near the capital of Illinois,—called Hercules after his grand-uncle Hercules, who drove the Indians down the Mississippi. Do you follow me?
Bluegrass, Scythe.
We do.
Bluegrass.
Oh, why was I so long pent up in the heart of a continent? I can remain on land no longer.
Scythe [taking out his note-book and writing].
Item,—this is important. Major Bluegrass, long pent up in the heart of the American continent, upon his first sight of the sea wishes to swim. This is of great scientific value, as it shows the recurrence, after long deprivation, of an inherited pre-Adamite instinct; for we read that Adam walked, but never that he swam, therefore are we driven to the waters for evidence. It proves the origin of man from the oyster, or some more ancient inhabitant of the sea.
Bluegrass.
I am no fish, nor ever was. I’d rather spring from a rainbow than a pond.