It was Noah who spoke.
"I'm glad," he said, "that when I embarked at the time of the heavy rains
that did so much damage in the old days, there weren't any dogs like that
fellow Cerberus about. If I'd had to feed a lot of three-headed beasts
like him the Ark would have run short of provisions inside of ten days."
"That's very likely true," observed Mr. Barnum; "but I must confess, my
dear Noah, that you showed a lamentable lack of the showman's instinct
when you selected the animals you did. A more commonplace lot of beasts
were never gathered together, and while Adam is held responsible for the
introduction of sin into the world, I attribute most of my offences to
none other than yourself."
The members of the club drew their chairs a little closer. The
conversation had opened a trifle spicily, and, furthermore, they had
retained enough of their mortality to be interested in animal stories.
Adam, who had managed to settle his back dues and delinquent
house-charges, and once more acquired the privileges of the club, nodded
his head gratefully at Mr. Barnum.
"I'm glad to find some one," said he, "who places the responsibility for
trouble where it belongs. I'm round-shouldered with the blame I've had
to bear. I didn't invent sin any more than I invented the telephone, and
I think it's rather rough on a fellow who lived a quiet, retiring,
pastoral life, minding his own business and staying home nights, to be
held up to public reprobation for as long a time as I have."
"It'll be all right in time," said Raleigh; "just wait--be patient, and
your vindication will come. Nobody thought much of the plays Bacon and I
wrote for Shakespeare until Shakespeare 'd been dead a century."
"Humph!" said Adam, gloomily. "Wait! What have I been doing all this
time? I've waited all the time there's been so far, and until Mr. Barnum
spoke as he did I haven't observed the slightest inclination on the part
of anybody to rehabilitate my lost reputation. Nor do I see exactly how
it's to come about even if I do wait."
"You might apply for an investigating committee to look into the
charges," suggested an American politician, just over. "Get your friends
on it, and you'll be all right."
"Better let sleeping dogs lie," said Blackstone.
"I intend to," said Adam. "The fact is, I hate to give any further
publicity to the matter. Even if I did bring the case into court and sue
for libel, I've only got one witness to prove my innocence, and that's my
wife. I'm not going to drag her into it. She's got nervous prostration
over her position as it is, and this would make it worse. Queen
Elizabeth and the rest of these snobs in society won't invite her to any
of their functions because they say she hadn't any grandfather; and even
if she were received by them, she'd be uncomfortable going about. It
isn't pleasant for a woman to feel that every one knows she's the oldest
woman in the room."
"Well, take my word for it," said Raleigh, kindly. "It'll all come out
all right. You know the old saying, 'History repeats itself.' Some day
you will be living back in Eden again, and if you are only careful to
make an exact record of all you do, and have a notary present, before
whom you can make an affidavit as to the facts, you will be able to
demonstrate your innocence."
"I was only condemned on hearsay evidence, anyhow," said Adam, ruefully.
"Nonsense; you were caught red-handed," said Noah; "my grandfather told
me so. And now that I've got a chance to slip in a word edgewise, I'd
like mightily to have you explain your statement, Mr. Barnum, that I am
responsible for your errors. That is a serious charge to bring against a
man of my reputation."
"I mean simply this: that to make a show interesting," said Mr. Barnum,
"a man has got to provide interesting materials, that's all. I do not
mean to say a word that is in any way derogatory to your morality. You
were a surprisingly good man for a sea-captain, and with the exception of
that one occasion when you--ah--you allowed yourself to be stranded on
the bar, if I may so put it, I know of nothing to be said against you as
a moral, temperate person."
"That was only an accident," said Noah, reddening. "You can't expect a
man six hundred odd years of age--"
"Certainly not," said Raleigh, soothingly, "and nobody thinks less of you
for it. Considering how you must have hated the sight of water, the
wonder of it is that it didn't become a fixed habit. Let us hear what it
is that Mr. Barnum does criticise in you."
"His taste, that's all," said Mr. Barnum. "I contend that, compared to
the animals he might have had, the ones he did have were as ant-hills to
Alps. There were more magnificent zoos allowed to die out through Noah's
lack of judgment than one likes to think of. Take the Proterosaurus, for
instance. Where on earth do we find his equal to-day?"
"You ought to be mighty glad you can't find one like him," put in Adam.
"If you'd spent a week in the Garden of Eden with me, with lizards eight
feet long dropping out of the trees on to your lap while you were trying
to take a Sunday-afternoon nap, you'd be willing to dispense with things
of that sort for the balance of your natural life. If you want to get an
idea of that experience let somebody drop a calf on you some afternoon."
"I am not saying anything about that," returned Barnum. "It would be
unpleasant to have an elephant drop on one after the fashion of which you
speak, but I am glad the elephant was saved just the same. I haven't
advocated the Proterosaurus as a Sunday-afternoon surprise, but as an
attraction for a show. I still maintain that a lizard as big as a cow
would prove a lodestone, the drawing powers of which the pocket-money of
the small boy would be utterly unable to resist. Then there was the
Iguanadon. He'd have brought a fortune to the box-office--"
"Which you'd have immediately lost," retorted Noah, "paying rent. When
you get a reptile of his size, that reaches thirty feet up into the air
when he stands on his hind-legs, the ordinary circus wagon of commerce
can't be made to hold him, and your menagerie-room has to have ceilings
so high that every penny he brought to the box-office would be spent
storing him."
"Mischievous, too," said Adam, "that Iguanadon. You couldn't keep
anything out of his reach. We used to forbid animals of his kind to
enter the garden, but that didn't bother him; he'd stand up on his hind-
legs and reach over and steal anything he'd happen to want."
"I could have used him for a fire-escape," said Mr. Barnum; "and as for
my inability to provide him with quarters, I'd have met that problem
after a short while. I've always lamented the absence, too, of the
Megalosaurus--"
"Which simply shows how ignorant you are," retorted Noah. "Why, my dear
fellow, it would have taken the whole of an ordinary zoo such as yours to
give the Megalosaurus a lunch. Those fellows would eat a rhinoceros as
easily as you'd crack a peanut. I did have a couple of Megalosaurians on
my boat for just twenty-four hours, and then I chucked them both
overboard. If I'd kept them ten days longer they'd have eaten every
blessed beast I had with me, and your Zoo wouldn't have had anything else
but Megalosaurians."
"Papa is right about that, Mr. Barnum," said Shem. "The whole Saurian
tribe was a fearful nuisance. About four hundred years before the flood
I had a pet Creosaurus that I kept in our barn. He was a cunning little
devil--full of tricks, and all that; but we never could keep a cow or a
horse on the place while he was about. They'd mysteriously disappear,
and we never knew what became of 'em until one morning we surprised Fido
in--"
"Surprised who?" asked Doctor Johnson, scornfully.
"Fido," returned Shem. "'That was my Creosaurus's name."
"Lord save us! Fido!" cried Johnson. "What a name for a Creosaurus!"
"Well, what of it?" asked Shem, angrily. "You wouldn't have us call a
mastodon like that Fanny, would you, or Tatters?"
"Go on," said Johnson; "I've nothing to say."
"Shall I send for a physician?" put in Boswell, looking anxiously at his
chief, the situation was so extraordinary.
Solomon and Carlyle giggled; and the Doctor having politely requested
Boswell to go to a warmer section of the country, Shem resumed.
"I caught him in the act of swallowing five cows and Ham's favorite
trotter, sulky and all."
Baron Munchausen rose up and left the room.
"If they're going to lie I'm going to get out," he said, as he passed
through the room.
"What became of Fido?" asked Boswell.
"The sulky killed him," returned Shem, innocently. "He couldn't digest
the wheels."
Noah looked approvingly at his son, and, turning to Barnum, observed,
quietly:
"What he says is true, and I will go further and say that it is my belief
that you would have found the show business impossible if I had taken
that sort of creature aboard. You'd have got mightily discouraged after
your Antediluvians had chewed up a few dozen steam calliopes, and eaten
every other able-bodied exhibit you had managed to secure. I'd have
tried to save a couple of Discosaurians if I hadn't supposed they were
able to take care of themselves. A combination of sea-serpent and
dragon, with a neck twenty-two feet long, it seemed to me, ought to have
been able to ride out any storm or fall of rain; but there I was wrong,
and I am free to admit my error. It never occurred to me that the sea-
serpents were in any danger, so I let them alone, with the result that I
never saw but one other, and he was only an illusion due to that unhappy
use of stimulants to which, with shocking bad taste, you have chosen to
refer."
"I didn't mean to call up unpleasant memories," said Barnum. "I never
believed you got half-seas over, anyhow; but, to return to our muttons,
why didn't you hand down a few varieties of the Therium family to
posterity? There were the Dinotherium and the Megatherium, either one of
which would have knocked spots out of any leopard that ever was made, and
along side of which even my woolly horse would have paled into
insignificance. That's what I can't understand in your selections; with
Megatheriums to burn, why save leopards and panthers and other such every-
day creatures?"
"What kind of a boat do you suppose I had?" cried Noah. "Do you imagine
for a moment that she was four miles on the water-line, with a mile and
three-quarters beam? If I'd had a pair of Dinotheriums in the stern of
that Ark, she'd have tipped up fore and aft, until she'd have looked like
a telegraph-pole in the water, and if I'd put 'em amidships they'd have
had to be wedged in so tightly they couldn't move to keep the vessel
trim. I didn't go to sea, my friend, for the purpose of being tipped
over in mid-ocean every time one of my cargo wanted to shift his weight
from one leg to the other."
"It was bad enough with the elephants, wasn't it, papa?" said Shem.
"Yes, indeed, my son," returned the patriarch. "It was bad enough with
the elephants. We had to shift our ballast half a dozen times a day to
keep the boat from travelling on her beam ends, the elephants moved about
so much; and when we came to the question of provender, it took up about
nine-tenths of our hold to store hay and peanuts enough to keep them
alive and good-tempered. On the whole, I think it's rather late in the
day, considering the trouble I took to save anything but myself and my
family, to be criticised as I now am. You ought to be much obliged to me
for saving any animals at all. Most people in my position would have
built a yacht for themselves and family, and let everything else slide."
"That is quite true," observed Raleigh, with a pacificatory nod at Noah.
"You were eminently unselfish, and while, with Mr. Barnum, I exceedingly
regret that the Saurians and Therii and other tribes were left on the
pier when you sailed, I nevertheless think that you showed most excellent
judgment at the time."
"He was the only man who had any at all, for that matter," suggested
Shem, "and it required all his courage to show it. Everybody was guying
him. Sinners stood around the yard all day and every day, criticising
the model; one scoffer pretended he thought her a canal-boat, and asked
how deep the flood was likely to be on the tow-path, and whether we
intended to use mules in shallow water and giraffes in deep; another
asked what time allowance we expected to get in a fifteen-mile run, and
hinted that a year and two months per mile struck him as being the proper
thing--"
"It was far from pleasant," said Noah, tapping his fingers together
reflectively. "I don't want to go through it again, and if, as Raleigh
suggests, history is likely to repeat herself, I'll sublet the contract
to Barnum here, and let him get the chaff."
"It was all right in the end, though, dad," said Shem. "We had the great
laugh on 'hoi polloi' the second day out."
"We did, indeed," said Noah. "When we told 'em we only carried first-
class passengers and had no room for emigrants, they began to see that
the Ark wasn't such an old tub, after all; and a good ninety per cent. of
them would have given ten dollars for a little of that time allowance
they'd been talking to us about for several centuries."
Noah lapsed into a musing silence, and Barnum rose to leave.
"I still wish you'd saved a Discosaurus," he said. "A creature with a
neck twenty-two feet long would have been a gold mine to me. He could
have been trained to stand in the ring, and by stretching out his neck
bite the little boys who sneak in under the tent and occupy seats on the
top row."
"Well, for your sake," said Noah, with a smile, "I'm very sorry; but for
my own, I'm quite satisfied with the general results."
And they all agreed that the patriarch had every reason to be pleased
with himself.