Bambi | Page 8

to put on your hat. You
forgot it."
"Oh, yes. Thank you!"
"I should like the opportunity of a few words with you, sir, if you can
spare the time."
"Well, I cannot. My time is very precious. If you desire to walk along
with me while I destroy these slugs, I will listen to what you say."
He pursued his course, and Jarvis, perforce, followed.
"I have been in your house for a week, now, Professor Parkhurst, and I
have merely encountered you at meals."
"Often enough," said the Professor, making a sudden turn that almost
upset Jarvis. "I go fifty steps up, and fifty steps back," he explained,
and Jarvis stared at him open-mouthed.

"You count your steps?" he repeated.
"Certainly, no matter what I do, I count. When I eat, when I sleep, walk,
talk, think, I always count."
"How awful! A human metronome. I must make a note of that." And
Jarvis took out a notebook to make an entry.
"You have the notebook habit?" snorted the Professor.
"Yes, I can't afford to waste ideas, suggestions, thoughts."
"Bah! A most offensive habit."
"I gather, from your general attitude," Jarvis began again, "that you
dislike me."
"I neither like nor dislike you. I don't know you."
"You never will know me, at this rate."
"I am not sure that I care to."
"Why not? What have you against me?"
"You are not practical."
"Do you consider yourself practical?"
"I do. I am the acme of practical. I am mathematical."
He slew another bug.
"How can you do that?" cried Jarvis, his concern in his face. "That slug
has a right to life. Why don't you get the point of view of the slug?"
"He kills my roses," justified the Professor. "He's a murderer. Society
has a right to extinguish him."

"The old fallacy, a tooth for a tooth?"
"You'd sacrifice my roses to save this insect?"
"I'd teach the rose to take care of itself."
"You're crazy," he snapped, and walked on, Jarvis at his heels.
"I didn't come to quarrel with you about our views of gardening, or of
life. I realize that we have no common ground. You are of the Past, and
I am of the Future."
"There is nobody more modern than I am!" cried the Professor.
"Rubbish! No modern wastes his life in rows of inanimate numerals.
We get out and work at humanity and its problems."
"What are the problems of humanity?"
"Food, employment, education, health."
"All of them mathematical. Economics is mathematical."
"Well, I wish instead of teaching a few thousand students higher
algebra that you had taught your own daughter a little common sense."
"Common sense is not taught. It is a gift of the gods, like genius," said
the Professor.
Jarvis glanced at him quickly, and took out the notebook.
"Put that thing away!" shouted the Professor. "I will not be annotated."
Jarvis meekly returned it to his pocket, but as the Professor right-about
faced, he exploded:
"For heaven's sake, sit down and listen to me! This mathematical
progression makes me crazy."

"I have just so many rows to do," the Professor replied, as he marched
along. "Do I understand you to criticise my daughter's education?"
"I don't know anything about her education. I didn't know she had one,"
said Jarvis, "but this whim of hers, in marrying me, is very trying to me.
It is most upsetting."
"Have it annulled. It can't possibly be legal."
"She won't hear of it. She desires to be married to me."
The Professor rose and faced him.
"Then you may as well resign yourself. I have lived with her nineteen
years and I know."
"But it is absurd that a child like that should always have her own way.
You have spoiled her."
Even the Professor's bent back showed pity.
"You have a great deal to learn, young man."
"Can't you persuade her to divorce me?"
"I cannot. I tried to persuade her to do that before she married you."
"I suppose you think I ought to make a living for her?"
"At the risk of being called a back number, I do."
"Just when I am beginning to count."
"Count? Count what?"
"Count as a creative artist."
"Just what is it you do, Jocelyn?"

"I try to express the Philosophy of Modernism through the medium of
the Drama."
"Who buys it?"
"Nobody."
"How are you beginning to count, then?"
"Oh, not in the market-place. In my own soul."
"Forty-nine, fifty," said the Professor. "Turn here. In your own soul,
you say?" He glanced at the youth beside him. "Bambi has sold her
birthright for a mess of pottage," he muttered.
"That's just the question. Whose duty is it to provide the pottage?"
"Maybe you think it's mine?"
"Why shouldn't Science support Art?"
"Humph! Why