At this moment the hunters descended from the top of the tree. Paganel carefully carried some black swallows’ eggs and a string of sparrows, which he meant afterwards to serve up as larks. Robert had adroitly brought down several pairs of jilgueros—little green-and-yellow birds, which are excellent eating, and very much in demand in the Montevideo market. The geographer, who knew many ways of preparing eggs, had to confine himself this time to cooking them in the hot ashes. However, the repast was as varied as it was delicate. The dried meat, the hard eggs, the broiled mojarras, and the roast sparrows and jilgueros, formed a repast which was long remembered.
The conversation was very animated. Paganel was greatly complimented in his twofold capacity of hunter and cook, and accepted these encomiums with the modesty that belongs to true merit. Then he gave himself up to singular observations on the magnificent tree that sheltered them with its foliage, and whose extent, as he declared, was immense.
“Robert and I,” said he jokingly, “imagined ourselves in the open forest during the hunt. One moment I thought we should be lost. I could not find my way. The sun was declining towards the horizon. I sought in vain to retrace my steps. Hunger made itself felt acutely. Already the gloomy coppices were resounding with the growls of ferocious beasts—but no, there are no ferocious beasts, and I am sorry.”
“What!” cried Glenarvan, “you are sorry there are no ferocious beasts?”
“Certainly.”
“But, when you have everything to fear from their ferocity—”
“Ferocity does not exist—scientifically speaking,” replied the geographer.
“Ha! this time, Paganel,” said the major, “you will not make me admit the utility of ferocious beasts. What are they good for?”
“Major,” cried Paganel, “they are good to form classifications, orders, families, genera, subgenera, species—”
“Very fine!” said MacNabb. “I should not have thought of that! If I had been one of Noah’s companions at the time of the deluge, I should certainly have prevented that imprudent patriarch from putting into the ark pairs of tigers, lions, bears, panthers, and other animals as destructive as they were useless.”
“Should you have done so?” inquired Paganel.
“I should.”
“Well, you would have been wrong in a zoological point of view.”
“But not in a human one.”
“This is shocking,” continued Paganel; “for my part, I should have preserved all the animals before the deluge of which we are so unfortunately deprived.”
“I tell you,” replied MacNabb, “that Noah was right in abandoning them to their fate, admitting that they lived in his time.”
“I tell you that Noah was wrong,” retorted Paganel, “and deserves the malediction of scholars to the end of time.”
The listeners to this argument could not help laughing at seeing the two friends dispute about what Noah ought to have done or left undone. The major, who had never argued with anyone in his life, contrary to all his principles, was every day at war with Paganel, who must have particularly excited him.
Glenarvan, according to his custom, interrupted the debate, and said—
“However much it is to be regretted, in a scientific or human point of view, that we are deprived of ferocious animals, we must be resigned today to their absence. Paganel could not hope to encounter any in this aerial forest.”
“No,” replied the geographer, “although we beat the bush. It is a pity, for it would have been a glorious hunt. A ferocious man-eater like the jaguar! With one blow of his paw he can twist the neck of a horse. When he has tasted human flesh, however, he returns to it ravenously. What he likes best is the Indian, then the negro, then the mulatto, and then the white man.”
“However that may be, my good Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “so long as there are no Indians, mulattoes, or negroes among us, I rejoice in the absence of your dear jaguars. Our situation is not, of course, so agreeable—”
“What!” cried Paganel, “you complain of your lot?”
“Certainly,” replied Glenarvan. “Are you at your ease in these uncomfortable and uncushioned branches?”
“I have never been more so, even in my own study. We lead the life of birds; we sing and flutter about. I almost think that men were destined to live in the trees.”
“They only want wings,” said the major.
“They will make them some day.”
“In the meantime,” replied Glenarvan, “permit me, my dear friend, to prefer the sand of a park, the floor of a house, or the deck of a vessel to this aerial abode.”
“Glenarvan,” said Paganel, “we must take things as they come. If favorable, so much the better; if unfavorable, we must not mind it. I see you long for the comforts of Malcolm Castle.”
“No, but—”
“I am certain that Robert is perfectly happy,” interrupted Paganel, to secure one advocate, at least, of his theories.
“Yes, Monsieur Paganel!” cried the boy, in a joyful tone.
“It is natural at his age,” replied Glenarvan.
“And at mine,” added the geographer. “The less ease we have, the fewer wants; the fewer wants, the happier we are.”
“Well,” said the major, “here is Paganel going to make an attack upon riches and gilded splendor.”
“No, my dear major,” continued Paganel; “but, if you wish, I will tell you, in this connection, a little Arab story that occurs to me.”
“Yes, yes, Monsieur Paganel,” cried Robert.
“And what will your story prove?” asked the major.
“What all stories prove, my brave companion.”
“Not much, then,” replied MacNabb. “But go on, Scheherezade, and tell one of those stories that you relate so well.”
“There was once upon a time,” said Paganel, “a son of the great Haroun-al-Raschid who was not happy. He accordingly consulted an old dervish, who told him that happiness was a very difficult thing to find in this world. ‘However,’ added he, ‘I know an infallible way to procure you happiness.’ ‘What
