no one had expressed more indignation at coldstream’s crime than did thud when the news of it reached him. the lad had never liked his brother-in-law, of whom he had stood in some awe. oscar had never appreciated thud’s wisdom, had sometimes rebuked him, and had actually compelled him to work! thud revenged himself now by calling coldstream a disgrace to the family, and declaring that he would never have intercourse either with him or his wife. thud destroyed two kind letters which he received from io, and scorned to send a reply. the manner in which the youth spoke of coldstream roused the indignation of smith, who was loyal to his old employer, and who called thud to his face an ungrateful puppy. it is not to be wondered at that master thucydides thorn soon quitted moulmein.
nor did he stay long at rangoon. thud did little there beyond selling his watch to enable him to go to another place. we will not follow him in all his wanderings. the poor lad travelled far and wide in search of a field for his talents, but never seemed to light on the right one. thud wore out his stockings, he wore out his shoes, and he utterly wore out his patience. sometimes master thucydides thorn had to carry a porter’s burden before he could eat a dinner. though his proud spirit rose against begging, more than once thud was driven to beg; but even in this he had but slender success. was it the world’s fault or that of thucydides thorn that one with his talents should be driven to such pitiful straits? certainly the youth laid the blame on the former, as many proud, foolish sluggards have done before. the world was blind, hard, and senseless; it had kept a worcester in prison, and persecuted a galileo.
for nearly two years this struggle with poverty went on. thud had grown thinner, sadder, and ten years older in appearance; but all his sufferings had not overcome the conceit and self-confidence which had been fostered in him from childhood.
at length, in one of the largest cities of india, thud found himself, as he thought, favoured by fortune, for he looked not up to a higher power. lingering sadly outside the gate of a kind of zoological garden, more hungry than the wild beasts within, thud’s eye fell on the following advertisement fixed on the wall: wanted a keeper who has some knowledge of animals and experience in managing them. thud’s experience was of a very limited character, but he believed his knowledge to be immense. thud at once went to the manager, and presented himself to him as a candidate for the office of keeper.
the manager was a sickly man, with a yellow complexion which told of liver complaint. mr. blane was very impatient indeed to escape for a while to a cooler place; but the death of one of his keepers, and the dismissal of another for having helped himself systematically from grain provided for birds under his charge, had made it impossible for the manager to get even a few days’ respite from work, however urgently needed.
when thud entered the room of mr. blane, the manager was by no means favourably impressed by the appearance of the candidate for the situation of keeper, and was at first disposed to bid the ragged, hunger-pinched young man go about his business. but when blane gave thud a hearing, the manager began to think that to send him off summarily might be a mistake. young thorn had natural history at the end of his fingers: he talked of feline, canine, and equine, carnivorous, granivorous, and omnivorous as familiarly as household words; he declared with such an air of conviction that he could find ways of feeding animals and keeping them healthy at half the usual cost, that blane began to hope what he desired—that he had lighted on a treasure. the manager asked thud for his credentials; of course none could be produced. thud said that he was an unfortunate gentleman of good family, who had come to moulmein to make scientific researches, and had found, like many others, that it was harder for a philosopher to earn his living there than it was for a coolie.
mr. blane then inquired his visitor’s name.
“thucydides thorn,” replied thud, with an assumed dignity which comically contrasted with the torn state of his jacket, and his shoeless, stockingless, blistered feet.
“thorn! why, my grandmother was a thorn,” cried blane, “and it is not a common surname. what part of england do you hail from, my man?”
then followed a catechising about family names, dates, and places of residence, from which the manager found out, without possibility of mistake, that he saw a second cousin once removed in the poor barefoot gentleman before him.
this was a delightful discovery for thud, and was scarcely less pleasant to blane, who shook his cousin heartily by the hand, and, without further inquiry, installed him in office. thud was at once clothed in blane’s left-off garments, given his second pair of boots, and invited to share his dinner. the half-famished young man was disposed to do full justice to the best repast of which he had partaken since leaving moulmein. after dinner, thud was introduced by blane to the limited collection of birds, beasts, and reptiles under his charge.
“they have been dying off pretty fast lately,” observed blane; “the last keeper embezzled money given for their food. the lion (alias cheetah) did not get the lion’s share.”
“of course you have preserved and stuffed the skins,” quoth thud.
“yes, yes; we’ve more stuffed creatures now than live ones, and they give less trouble,” observed blane. “you see this building to the right? that is our little museum.”
museum! the word was nectar to thud. the bright vision rose before him of a day when he should be not only keeper but manager—nay, more, proprietor—of a museum, filled not merely with stuffed monkeys and snakes, but with all the curiosities of the east.
that evening mr. blane started for his too long deferred holiday trip, which illness obliged him to prolong from days to weeks.
thud was at first in his glory, monarch of all he surveyed, “lord of the fowl and the brute.” but troubles will come even to scientific keepers of zoological gardens. a theory of thud’s, that carnivorous beasts may be trained to thrive on boiled grain, when worked out did not prove a success. thud wondered why animals, even when scientifically treated, would sicken and die. they seemed to do so on purpose to spite him.
the young philosopher felt a great want of companions. the gardens had few visitors, and those visitors did not appreciate thucydides thorn, or the theories which he was always eager to propound. thud was almost thrown for society on a one-eyed discharged soldier, who now, as a porter, kept the gate. this man, colin champer, was discovered by thud to be a remarkably shrewd, intelligent man. champer won this character because he was a good listener; he echoed every wise saying dropped by thud, having no imagination of his own, and gave implicit credence to whatever his oracle said.
one day, after being for some time buried in thought, thud raised his head with a kind of scientific inspiration, for a new theory had entered his brain.
“champer,” said he to the porter, “how was the keeper cured who, as you told me, was bitten here by a snake?”
“he had ammonia rubbed in, and had ammonia mixed with water poured down his throat,” was champers reply.
“and he recovered?” asked thud.
“yes, he recovered,” replied the man with a grin; “but the snake warn’t a poisonous un.”
“still, its clear that ammonia is the antidote to a serpent’s poison.”
“maybe it is, maybe it ain’t,” said the man.
“and no one can deny,” pursued thud, “that with every evil under the sun the wise thing is to go to the fountain-head, the source.”
“the fountain-head, the source,” echoed champer, without the slightest comprehension of what the oracle meant.
“now, what is the source, the fountain-head of a serpent’s poison. is it not the serpent’s fang?” cried thud.
“certainly, the serpent’s fang,” said the echo.
“then my theory is, that if ammonia corrects poison in the blood of a bitten man, it would be far more effectual, and economical too, to introduce it, not into the wound, but into the jaws that might inflict such a wound. is not this self-evident?” asked the philosopher, appealing to champer.
“self-evident,” repeated the echo, but with a very faint comprehension of the orator’s logic.
“you grant this,” said thud. “then the sure way to prevent deaths from snake-bites would be to pour ammonia on the fangs of the snakes.”
“if you could catch ’em,” suggested old champer.
“we have four snakes in the case,” continued thud. “no, i remember that two died yesterday; but we have the cobra still. from this little glass-stoppered bottle of ammonia i mean to pour some drops into his mouth, and so render his poison innocuous for ever.”
“if the cobra don’t object,” observed champer, grinning again.
“here’s the case with its strong wire-work covering,” said thud. “i am going to prove the truth of my theory.”
feeling like a second jenner, thucydides thorn advanced to the case. the cobra looked sleepy, and averse to experiments being tried upon him. he would not be stirred up, even when thud poked him with a straw introduced between the wires. the sulky snake would not open his jaws.
thud dropped a little ammonia from the bottle through the wire cover; it fell on the cobra’s head and on one of its glittering eyes. the reptile was thoroughly roused, swelled out his hood, and twisted about in angry contortions.
“i have not managed to get the ammonia on his fangs yet,” cried thud; “but he’s opening his jaws wide enough now.”
the young experimentalist, holding the bottle ready, and eagerly watching for an opportunity, bent over the cage. the reptile evidently saw him, for the cobra darted out his forked tongue, and seemed ready to spring; but thud felt no fear, for he knew that strong wire-work effectually imprisoned the serpent. but whilst the philosopher held the bottle in his right hand, he unconsciously let the left press heavily on the wires, which were not so close as to prevent a small portion of a finger being exposed to the enemy’s attack. there was a spring from below, a cry from above.
“oh, i am bitten!” cried thud, staggering back from the cage and dropping the bottle.
“then you are a dead man!” ejaculated champer.
the prognostication was too soon fulfilled: poor thud had received his mortal wound, and expired within half-an-hour of receiving the bite. his end was in character with his career. there was no epitaph over thud’s grave, or it might have run thus: “here lies thucydides thorn, a victim to his own theories, a martyr to science, of which he spoke so much and comprehended so little.”
