Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER SIXTH.

A Ser­vant–match him!–He can see the Satel­lites of Jupiter.–Dick and Joe hard at it.–Doubt and Faith.–The Weigh­ing Cer­emo­ny.–Joe and Welling­ton.–He gets a Half-​crown.

Dr. Fer­gu­son had a ser­vant who an­swered with alacrity to the name of Joe. He was an ex­cel­lent fel­low, who tes­ti­fied the most ab­so­lute con­fi­dence in his mas­ter, and the most un­lim­it­ed de­vo­tion to his in­ter­ests, even an­tic­ipat­ing his wish­es and or­ders, which were al­ways in­tel­li­gent­ly ex­ecut­ed. In fine, he was a Caleb with­out the growl­ing, and a per­fect pat­tern of con­stant good-​hu­mor. Had he been made on pur­pose for the place, it could not have been bet­ter done. Fer­gu­son put him­self en­tire­ly in his hands, so far as the or­di­nary de­tails of ex­is­tence were con­cerned, and he did well. In­com­pa­ra­ble, whole-​souled Joe! a ser­vant who or­ders your din­ner; who likes what you like; who packs your trunk, with­out for­get­ting your socks or your linen; who has charge of your keys and your se­crets, and takes no ad­van­tage of all this!

But then, what a man the doc­tor was in the eyes of this wor­thy Joe! With what re­spect and what con­fi­dence the lat­ter re­ceived all his de­ci­sions! When Fer­gu­son had spo­ken, he would be a fool who should at­tempt to ques­tion the mat­ter. Ev­ery thing he thought was ex­act­ly right; ev­ery thing he said, the per­fec­tion of wis­dom; ev­ery thing he or­dered to be done, quite fea­si­ble; all that he un­der­took, prac­ti­ca­ble; all that he ac­com­plished, ad­mirable. You might have cut Joe to pieces–not an agree­able op­er­ation, to be sure–and yet he would not have al­tered his opin­ion of his mas­ter.

So, when the doc­tor con­ceived the project of cross­ing Africa through the air, for Joe the thing was al­ready done; ob­sta­cles no longer ex­ist­ed; from the mo­ment when the doc­tor had made up his mind to start, he had ar­rived –along with his faith­ful at­ten­dant, too, for the no­ble fel­low knew, with­out a word ut­tered about it, that he would be one of the par­ty.

More­over, he was just the man to ren­der the great­est ser­vice by his in­tel­li­gence and his won­der­ful agili­ty. Had the oc­ca­sion arisen to name a pro­fes­sor of gym­nas­tics for the mon­keys in the Zo­olog­ical Gar­den (who are smart enough, by-​the-​way!), Joe would cer­tain­ly have re­ceived the ap­point­ment. Leap­ing, climb­ing, al­most fly­ing– these were all sport to him.

If Fer­gu­son was the head and Kennedy the arm, Joe was to be the right hand of the ex­pe­di­tion. He had, al­ready, ac­com­pa­nied his mas­ter on sev­er­al jour­neys, and had a smat­ter­ing of sci­ence ap­pro­pri­ate to his con­di­tion and style of mind, but he was es­pe­cial­ly re­mark­able for a sort of mild phi­los­ophy, a charm­ing turn of op­ti­mism. In his sight ev­ery thing was easy, log­ical, nat­ural, and, con­se­quent­ly, he could see no use in com­plain­ing or grum­bling.

Among oth­er gifts, he pos­sessed a strength and range of vi­sion that were per­fect­ly sur­pris­ing. He en­joyed, in com­mon with Moestlin, Ke­pler’s pro­fes­sor, the rare fac­ul­ty of dis­tin­guish­ing the satel­lites of Jupiter with the naked eye, and of count­ing four­teen of the stars in the group of Pleiades, the re­motest of them be­ing on­ly of the ninth mag­ni­tude. He pre­sumed none the more for that; on the con­trary, he made his bow to you, at a dis­tance, and when oc­ca­sion arose he brave­ly knew how to use his eyes.

With such pro­found faith as Joe felt in the doc­tor, it is not to be won­dered at that in­ces­sant dis­cus­sions sprang up be­tween him and Kennedy, with­out any lack of re­spect to the lat­ter, how­ev­er.

One doubt­ed, the oth­er be­lieved; one had a pru­dent fore­sight, the oth­er blind con­fi­dence. The doc­tor, how­ev­er, vi­brat­ed be­tween doubt and con­fi­dence; that is to say, he trou­bled his head with nei­ther one nor the oth­er.

“Well, Mr. Kennedy,” Joe would say.

“Well, my boy?”

“The mo­ment’s at hand. It seems that we are to sail for the moon.”

“You mean the Moun­tains of the Moon, which are not quite so far off. But, nev­er mind, one trip is just as dan­ger­ous as the oth­er!”

“Dan­ger­ous! What! with a man like Dr. Fer­gu­son?”

“I don’t want to spoil your il­lu­sions, my good Joe; but this un­der­tak­ing of his is noth­ing more nor less than the act of a mad­man. He won’t go, though!”

“He won’t go, eh? Then you haven’t seen his bal­loon at Mitchell’s fac­to­ry in the Bor­ough?”

“I’ll take pre­cious good care to keep away from it!”

“Well, you’ll lose a fine sight, sir. What a splen­did thing it is! What a pret­ty shape! What a nice car! How snug we’ll feel in it!”

“Then you re­al­ly think of go­ing with your mas­ter?”

“I?” an­swered Joe, with an ac­cent of pro­found con­vic­tion. “Why, I’d go with him wher­ev­er he pleas­es! Who ev­er heard of such a thing? Leave him to go off alone, af­ter we’ve been all over the world to­geth­er! Who would help him, when he was tired? Who would give him a hand in climb­ing over the rocks? Who would at­tend him when he was sick? No, Mr. Kennedy, Joe will al­ways stick to the doc­tor!”

“You’re a fine fel­low, Joe!”

“But, then, you’re com­ing with us!”

“Oh! cer­tain­ly,” said Kennedy; “that is to say, I will go with you up to the last mo­ment, to pre­vent Samuel even then from be­ing guilty of such an act of fol­ly! I will fol­low him as far as Zanz­ibar, so as to stop him there, if pos­si­ble.”

“You’ll stop noth­ing at all, Mr. Kennedy, with all re­spect to you, sir. My mas­ter is no hare-​brained per­son; he takes a long time to think over what he means to do, and then, when he once gets start­ed, the Evil One him­self couldn’t make him give it up.”

“Well, we’ll see about that.”

“Don’t flat­ter your­self, sir–but then, the main thing is, to have you with us. For a hunter like you, sir, Africa’s a great coun­try. So, ei­ther way, you won’t be sor­ry for the trip.”

“No, that’s a fact, I shan’t be sor­ry for it, if I can get this crazy man to give up his scheme.”

“By-​the-​way,” said Joe, “you know that the weigh­ing comes off to-​day.”

“The weigh­ing–what weigh­ing?”

“Why, my mas­ter, and you, and I, are all to be weighed to-​day!”

“What! like horse-​jock­eys?”

“Yes, like jock­eys. On­ly, nev­er fear, you won’t be ex­pect­ed to make your­self lean, if you’re found to be heavy. You’ll go as you are.”

“Well, I can tell you, I am not go­ing to let my­self be weighed,” said Kennedy, firm­ly.

“But, sir, it seems that the doc­tor’s ma­chine re­quires it.”

“Well, his ma­chine will have to do with­out it.”

“Humph! and sup­pose that it couldn’t go up, then?”

“Egad! that’s all I want!”

“Come! come, Mr. Kennedy! My mas­ter will be send­ing for us di­rect­ly.”

“I shan’t go.”

“Oh! now, you won’t vex the doc­tor in that way!”

“Aye! that I will.”

“Well!” said Joe with a laugh, “you say that be­cause he’s not here; but when he says to your face, ‘Dick!’ (with all re­spect to you, sir,) ‘Dick, I want to know ex­act­ly how much you weigh,’ you’ll go, I war­rant it.”

“No, I will NOT go!”

At this mo­ment the doc­tor en­tered his study, where this dis­cus­sion had been tak­ing place; and, as he came in, cast a glance at Kennedy, who did not feel al­to­geth­er at his ease.

“Dick,” said the doc­tor, “come with Joe; I want to know how much you both weigh.”

“But–“

“You may keep your hat on. Come!” And Kennedy went.

They re­paired in com­pa­ny to the work­shop of the Messrs. Mitchell, where one of those so-​called “Ro­man” scales was in readi­ness. It was nec­es­sary, by the way, for the doc­tor to know the weight of his com­pan­ions, so as to fix the equi­lib­ri­um of his bal­loon; so he made Dick get up on the plat­form of the scales. The lat­ter, with­out mak­ing any re­sis­tance, said, in an un­der­tone:

“Oh! well, that doesn’t bind me to any thing.”

“One hun­dred and fifty-​three pounds,” said the doc­tor, not­ing it down on his tablets.

“Am I too heavy?”

“Why, no, Mr. Kennedy!” said Joe; “and then, you know, I am light to make up for it.”

So say­ing, Joe, with en­thu­si­asm, took his place on the scales, and very near­ly up­set them in his ready haste. He struck the at­ti­tude of Welling­ton where he is made to ape Achilles, at Hyde-​Park en­trance, and was su­perb in it, with­out the shield.

“One hun­dred and twen­ty pounds,” wrote the doc­tor.

“Ah! ha!” said Joe, with a smile of sat­is­fac­tion And why did he smile? He nev­er could tell him­self.

“It’s my turn now,” said Fer­gu­son–and he put down one hun­dred and thir­ty-​five pounds to his own ac­count.

“All three of us,” said he, “do not weigh much more than four hun­dred pounds.”

“But, sir,” said Joe, “if it was nec­es­sary for your ex­pe­di­tion, I could make my­self thin­ner by twen­ty pounds, by not eat­ing so much.”

“Use­less, my boy!” replied the doc­tor. “You may eat as much as you like, and here’s half-​a-​crown to buy you the bal­last.”