Appleby on Ararat Read Free

plainly vividly aware of him. Colonel Glover coughed, attempted speech, faltered, coughed again like a faulty engine achieving a second start. “Nice morning,” he said. “But a bit on the humid side.”
    The black man – might he be a Zulu? – brilliantly smiled. “I like it moist,” he said – and his voice was as the Society for Pure English speaking through a magnifying and deepening machine. “Do you know where I often make for in London? The acclimatisation house at the zoo.”
    “The acclimatisation house!” Miss Curricle was startled.
    The black man bowed. “Among the gorillas,” he said gravely. And taking a deep breath he raised both arms and drummed unobtrusively on his chest.
    Miss Curricle involuntarily gathered her skirts about her, as if envisaging the instant necessity of dodging behind a tree. “It must be a great change,” she said vaguely. “London, I mean. After – after your part of the world.”
    Mr Hoppo made a large gesture at the ocean. “Do you,” he asked with cordiality, “know the Pacific well?”
    The black man did not immediately reply, and they all looked out, as if some survey of the beating waters might help him to an answer. The horizon, very remote from this height, swayed rhythmically up and down, a faintly serrated line between blues. It enclosed emptiness and the ceaseless impotent friction of the waters. No one could know the Pacific, and perhaps the black man’s momentary silence implied as much. “Only a small corner,” he said. “I have done some work in the Tamota group.”
    “Ah,” said Mr Hoppo, and his voice took on a new tone. “How wide the field! And how few–”
    “I am an anthropologist.”
    “Indeed!” Mr Hoppo, abandoning his professional voice, contorted his features into a fair representation of the incisiveness of the scientist. “An absorbing study, sir.”
    “There were some fascinating things there. They would interest you, I believe.”
    “I am sure of it.” Mr Hoppo spoke without certainty.
    “There is one incarnation myth in particular–”
    “Ah!” Mr Hoppo began to peer about him. “I wonder where I can have left–”
    “Mr Hoppo,” said Miss Curricle, “is a clergyman.” She spoke with a severity which ambiguity rendered formidable. “I am a good deal interested myself–”
    Mrs Kittery interrupted. Her eyes, the quiet young man noted, had been widening upon the newcomer as he rather wished they would widen on him; now he spoke at her most eager. “About that zoo,” she asked; “that zoo in London. Would you say they feed the animals as they ought?”
    “No.” He was looking at her without complicity or surprise, but there was a remote and understanding mischief in his voice; perhaps, the young man thought, he had an extra and primitive sense or two tucked away. “No. In point of strict diatetics it may be sound enough. But the tastes of the creatures are inadequately consulted. Take the hippopotamus: the hippopotamus must have mangoes.”
    “The hippopotamuses always have mangoes in Australia,” said Mrs Kittery, and paused to garner a displeased sound from Miss Curricle. “And custard-apples – is that right?” She was looking up with great innocence into the black man’s eyes.
    “Perfectly right,” said the black man. He looked quickly at Colonel Glover, who had menacingly coughed. “In moderation, of course.”
    “Of course.” Mrs Kittery offered the black man potato crisps, and at this Mr Hoppo coughed too. “Do you know,” she said suddenly, “I’ve just thought of the title of a book?”
    “Indeed?” enquired Mr Hoppo, and made disapproving faces behind the black man’s back. “It would scarcely have occurred to me that you were an authoress.”
    “I’m not. But sometimes I like to think of books it would be fun to write.” Mrs Kittery’s remarks were now addressed with frankly wanton concentration to the black man only. “This one is the result” – she hesitated for a phrase