May .. An advantage of having sims present appears that I had not thought on. Both Tom and Peg quite excellent ratters, finer than any puss-cat. No need, either, to fling the rats on the dungheap, for they devour them with as much gusto as I should a neat's tongue. They having subsisted on such smal deer in the forests of America, I shall not try to break them of the habit, though training them not to bring in their prey when we are at table with guests. The Reverend Mr. Milles quite shocked, but recovering nicely on being plied with wine.
May 8. Peg and Tom the both of them enthral ed with fire. When the work of them is done of the day, or at evening ere they take their rest, they may be found before the hearth observing the sport of the flames.
Now and again one will to the other say boo!, this noise, I find, they utter on seeing that which does interest them, whatsoever it may be.
Now as I thought on it, I minded me reading or hearing, I recall not which, that in their wild unpeopled haunts the sims know the use of fire as they find it set from lightning or other such mischance, but not the art of its making. No wonder then they are Vulcanolaters, reckoning name more precious than do we gold.
Considering such reflections, I resolved this morning on an experimtnt, to see what they might do. Rising early for to void my bladder in the pot, I put out the hearthfire, which in any case was gone low through want of fuel. Reired then to put on my dressing gown and, once clad, returned to await developments.
First up from the cellar was Tom, and his cry on seeing the flames extinguished heartrending as Romeo's over the body of fair Julia when I did see that play acted this December past. In a trice comes Peg, who moaning with Tom did rouse my wife, and she much upset at being so rudely wakened.
When calm in some small measure was restored, I bade by signs, in the learning of which I proceed apace, for the sims to sit quiely before the hearth, and with flint and steel restored that which I had earlier destroyed. They both made such outcry as if they had heard sounded the Last Trump.
Then doused I that second fire too, again to which distress from Peg and Tom. Elizabeth by this time out of the house in some dudgeon, no doubt to spend money we lack on stuffs of which we have no want.
Set up in the hearth thereupon several smal ares of sticks, each with much tinder so as to make it an easy matter to kindle. A brisk striking of flint and steel dropping sparks onto one such produced a merry little blaze, to the accompaniment of much booing out of the sims.
And so to the nub of it. Showing Tom the steel and flint, I clashed them once more the one upon the other so he might see the sparks engendered thereby. Then pointed to one of the aforementioned piles of sticks I had made up, bidding him watch close, as indeed he did. Having made sure of't, I did start that second pile alight.
Again put the fires out, the wailing accompanying the act less than heretofore, for which I was not sorry. Pointed now to a third assemblage of wood and tinder, but instead of myself lighting it, I did convey flint and steel to Tom, and the with signs essayed to bid him play Promeheus.
His hands much scarred and cal used, and ugler their hair knobby-knuckled as an Irishman's. He held at first the implements as if not taking in their purpose, yet the sims making tools of stone, as is widely reported, he could not fail to grasp their utility.
And indeed ere long he did try parroting me. When his first clumsy attempt yielded no result, I thought he would abandon such efforts as beynd his capacity and reserved for men of my sort.
But persist he did, and at length was rewarded with scintil ae like unto those I had made. His grin so wide and gleeful I thought it would stretch clear round his head.
Then without need of my further demonstration he set the instruments of rite production over the materials for the blaze. Him in such excitement as the sparks fell upon the waiting tinder that beneath his breeches rose his member, indeed to such degree as would have made me proud to be its possessor. And Peg was, I think, in such mood as to couple with him on the spot, had I not been present and had not his faculties been directed elsewhere than toward the lectual.
For at his success he cut such capers as had not been out of place upon the stage, were they but a trifle more rhythmical and less unconstrained.
Yet of the making of fire, even if
by such expedient as the friction of two sticks (which once I was forced by circumstance to attempt, and would try the patience of Job), as of every other salutary art, his race is as utterly ignorant as of the moons of Jupiter but lately found by some Italian with an optic glass.
No brute beast of the field could learn to begin a fire on the technique being shown it, which did Tom nigh readily as a man. But despite most diligent instruction, no sim yet has mastered such subtler arts as reading and writing, nor ever will, meseems. Falling in capacity thus between men and animal, the sims do raise a host of conundrums vexing and perplexing. I should pay a pound, or at the least ten shillings, merely to know how such strange fusions came to be.
So to the Admiralty full of such musings, which did occupy my mind, I fear, to the detriment of my proper duties.
May I0. Supper this evening at the Turk's Head, with the other members of the Rota Club. The fare not of the finest, being boiled venison and some few pigeons, al meanly done up.
The lamb's wool seemed naught but poor ale, the sugar, nutmeg, and meat of roasted apples hardly to be tasted. Miles the landlord down with a quartan fever, but il -served by his staff if such is the result of his absence.
The subject of the Club's discussions for the evening much in accord with my own recent curiosity, to wit, the sims. Cyriack Skinner did maintain them creatures of the Devil, whereupon was he roundly raped by Dr. Croon as having in this contention returned to the pernicious heresy of the Maniches, the learned doctor reserving the power of creation to the Lord alone. Much flinging back and forth of biblical texts, the which all struck me more as being an exercise of ingenuity of the debaters than bearing on the problem, for in plain fact the Scriptures nowhere mention sims.
When at length the talk did turn to matters more ascertainable, I spoke somewhat of my recent investigation, and right well received my remarks were, or so l thought. Others with experience of sims with like tales, finding them quick enough on things practic but sadly lacking in any higher faculties. Much jollity at my account of the visible manifestation of Tom's excitement, and whispers that this lady or that (the names, to my vexation, I failed to catch) owned her sims for naught but their prowess in matters of the mattress.
Just then came the maid by with coffee for the Club, not of the best, but better, I grant, than the earlier wretched lamb's wool. She a pretty yellow-haired lass called, I believe, Kate, a wench of perhaps sixteen years, a goodbodied woman not over thick or thin in any place, with a lovely bosom she did display most charmingly as she bent to fill-the gentlemen's cups.
