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Page 57
"It seems, then, according to Bainbridge, that we moderns owe about all
we have to the Jew and the Dago! Now, men less intelligent than you and
I, after looking at the average Jew and Dago as seen to-day in the
United States, would doubt this assertion. I cannot dispute it, however;
for through the ancient Jew certainly came Christianity, and through the
ancients in Greece and Italy our art."
He paused for a moment, and then continued:
"A delightfully euphonious set of names those Hili-lites possess. The
name _Hi_li-_li_ is not bad itself: _Hi_li-_li_, _Hi_li-_lite_,
_Hi_li-_li_land--pretty good. _Li_-la-ma, Ah-_pe_-lus, Di-_re_-gus,
Me-_do_-sus, Ma-_su_-se-_li_-la--all pretty fair. I have no doubt that
Bainbridge would spell them so as to produce a Latin appearance. And
this reminds me of a certain name not Latin."
I saw that the doctor was about to recount a "personal experience." He
continued:
"One day a stranger came to our town--a plain, clean-looking, blue-eyed
sort of scientific fellow from somewhere so far out in the suburbs of
Europe that the name of his country or province has wholly slipped my
memory--a mighty rare thing, by the by, and it always galls me when I
forget anything. This chap came here to look at coal, or to hammer
rocks, or to look for curiosities. Well, he ran up against me. Don't ask
me his name--I believe he spelled it S-c-h-w-o-j-k-h-h-j-z-y-t-y-h-o
B-j-h-z-o-w-h-j-u-g-h-s-c-h-k-j. One day he asked me to introduce him to
a certain Bellevue capitalist. The fellow had pleased me, and I agreed
to do the introducing--partly, I admit, to see whether a man that
gutteralled his words out of his stomach could swindle one of our own
sharpers that talked through his nose. But now came the rub: how was I
to introduce a man when I couldn't utter his name? I used to practice at
pronouncing that name as I rode around in my buggy, but it was no go. At
last the day came when I was to introduce the fellow with a surplus of
knowledge, to the fellow with a surplus of cash. That morning I awoke
with the worst sorethroat of my life. I felt as if I had two boiled
potatoes in my throat. The passage from my nose to my windpipe was
closed for repairs, and that from my mouth to my throat was
seven-eighths closed. Pretty soon, just from recent habit, I began to
practise on the scientific chap's name. Great Scott! I could pronounce
it better than its owner could. There were certain grunts and sneezes in
the name--particularly one syllable between a grunt and a sneeze--that I
suppose no Anglo-Saxon had ever before or has ever since uttered
correctly; but they were nothing to me, so long as my sorethroat
lasted."
Then Castleton rushed from the room; calling back from the head of the
stairs, and in tones intentionally audible to every man and woman on
that floor of the hotel:
"It's coming, sir, depend upon it--the genuine yellow fever--evaded the
New Orleans quarantine three weeks ago--three cases at Shreveport and
two at Memphis reported--talk, too, of a case in St. Louis. Heavens! but
I hope a beneficent Creator will not allow some other doctor to get the
first case, when, happily, it shall have reached Bellevue."
The last sentence was uttered _sotto voce_, as he descended the stairs.
The EIGHTEENTH Chapter
"It appears," continued Bainbridge, on the following evening, "that
Hili-li was subject to the recurrence about once in forty-seven years of
a strange thermic phenomenon, the mean duration of which was about fifty
hours. This change had occurred twenty-one times in the preceding
thousand years; its duration had once been as brief as thirty hours, and
at another time had lasted one hundred and twenty hours. The interval
between two of its visitations had once been somewhat less than eight
years; whilst at the period of Pym and Peters' presence in Hili-li, it
had not occurred for eighty-six years and some months. For some reason
that could not be conjectured, at these times the wind-currents,
generally varying but slightly in force and duration, changed, the wind
coming from a point of the compass almost diametrically opposite to its
usual direction, and increasing in velocity and force to that of a
tempest or blizzard. The result was, that in a very few hours the
temperature of Hili-li fell to about zero Fahrenheit, if in December or
January; to 60� or 70� Fahrenheit below freezing, if in July or August.
During the first few hours of the change, owing to the extremely moist
state of the atmosphere for many miles in all directions from the crater
of Hili-li, there occurred a heavy snowfall--which, however, diminished
as the temperature fell, until at somewhat above the zero point it
ceased.
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