Quick Action. Chambers Robert William

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СКАЧАТЬ she murmured, perplexed.

      "Well, I'll tell you how I showed it to him. I made a little incision in my skin with a lancet; he made a smear or two – "

      "A – what?"

      "A smear – he put a few drops of my blood on some glass plates."

      "Why?"

      "To examine them under the microscope."

      "Why?"

      "So that he might determine what particular kind of malaria I had brought back with me."

      "Did he find out?" she asked, deeply interested.

      "Yes," said Jones, displaying mild symptoms of enthusiasm, "he discovered that I was fairly swarming with a perfectly new and undescribed species of bacillus. That bacillus," he added, with modest diffidence, "is now named after me."

      She looked at him very earnestly, dropped her blue eyes, raised them again after a moment:

      "It must be – pleasant – to give one's name to a bacillus."

      "It is an agreeable and exciting privilege. When I look into the culture tubes I feel an intimate relationship with those bacilli which I have never felt for any human being."

      "You – you are a – " she hesitated, with a slight but charming colour in her cheeks, "a naturalist, I presume?" And she added hastily, "No doubt you are a famous one, and my question must sound ignorant and absurd to you. But as I do not know your name – "

      "It is Jones," he said gloomily, " – and I am not famous."

      "Mine is Cecil Cassillis; and neither am I," she said. "But I thought when naturalists gave their names to butterflies and microbes that everything concerned immediately became celebrated."

      Jones smiled; and she thought his expression very attractive.

      "No," he said, "fame crowns the man who, celebrated only for his wealth, names hotels, tug-boats, and art galleries after himself. Thus are Immortals made."

      She laughed, standing there gracefully as a boy, her hands resting on her narrow hips. She laughed again. A tug-boat, a hotel, and a cigar were named after her father.

      "Fame is an extraordinary thing," she said. "But liberty is still more wonderful, isn't it?"

      "Liberty is only comparative," he said, smiling. "There is really no such thing as absolute freedom."

      "You have all the freedom you desire, haven't you?"

      "Well – I enjoy the only approach to absolute liberty I ever heard of."

      "What kind of liberty is that?"

      "Freedom to think as I please, no matter what I'm obliged to do."

      "But you do what you please, too, don't you?"

      "Oh, no!" he said smiling. "The man was never born who did what he pleased."

      "Why not? You choose your own work, don't you?"

      "Yes. But once the liberty of choice is exercised, freedom ends. I choose my profession. There my liberty ends, because instantly I am enslaved by the conditions which make my choice a profession."

      She was deeply interested. A mossy log lay near them; she seated herself to listen, her elbow on her knee, and her chin cupped in her hand. But Jones became silent.

      "Were you not in that funny little boat that passed the inlet about three hours ago?" she asked.

      "The Orange Puppy? Yes."

      "What an odd name for a boat – the Orange Puppy!"

      "An orange puppy," he explained, "is the name given in the Florida orange groves to the caterpillar of a large swallow-tail butterfly, which feeds on orange leaves. The butterfly it turns into is known to entomologists as Papilio cresphontes and Papilio thoas. The latter is a misnomer."

      She gazed upon this young man in undisguised admiration.

      "Once," she said, "when I was nine years old, I ran away from a governess and two trained nurses. They found me with both hands full of muddy pollywogs. It has nothing to do with what you are saying, but I thought I'd tell you."

      He insisted that the episode she recalled was most interesting and unusual, considered purely as a human document.

      "Would you tell me what you are doing down here in these forests?" she asked, " – as we are discussing human documents."

      "Yes," he said. "I am investigating several thousand small caterpillars which are feeding on the scrub-palmetto."

      "Is that your business?"

      "Exactly. If you will remain very still for a moment and listen very intently you can hear the noise which these caterpillars make while they are eating."

      She thought of the Chihuahua, and it occurred to her that she had rather tired of seeing things eat. However, except in Europe, she had never heard things eat. So she listened.

      He said: "These caterpillars are in their third moult – that is, they have changed their skin three times since emerging from the egg – and are now busily chewing the immature fruit of the scrub-palmetto. You can hear them very plainly."

      She sat silent, spellbound; and presently in the woodland stillness, all around her she heard the delicate and continuous sound – the steady, sustained noise of thousands of tiny jaws, all crunching, all busily working together. And when she realized what the elfin rustle really meant, she turned her delighted and grateful eyes on Jones. And the beauty of them made him exceedingly thoughtful.

      "Will you explain to me," she whispered, "why you are studying these caterpillars, Mr. Jones?"

      "Because they are spreading out over the forests. Until recently this particular species of caterpillar, and the pretty little moth into which it ultimately turns, were entirely confined to a narrow strip of jungle, only a few miles long, lying on the Halifax River. Nowhere else in all the world could these little creatures be found. But recently they have been reported from the Dead Lake country. So the Smithsonian Institution sent me down here to study them, and find out whither they were spreading, and whether any natural parasitic enemies had yet appeared to check them."

      She gazed at him, fascinated.

      "Have any appeared?" she asked, under her breath.

      "I have not yet found a single creature that preys upon them."

      "Isn't it a very arduous and difficult task to watch these thousands of little caterpillars all day long?"

      "It is quite impossible for me to do it thoroughly all alone."

      "Would you like to have me help you?" she asked innocently.

      Which rather bowled him over, but he said:

      "I'd b-b-be d-d-delighted – only you haven't time, have you?"

      "I have three days. I've brought a tent, you see, and everything necessary – rugs, magazines, blankets, toilet articles, bon-bons, books – everything, in fact, to last three days… I wonder СКАЧАТЬ