You pore over animals, you probe into animals,
you're always thinking about animals; which amounts to consorting
with animals--at their worst, too. . . . I tell you, Jack, it won't
do. I've had my doubts for some time, but to-night I'm sure of it.
If you go on as you're going, there'll be a smash, my boy."
I was half afraid he would fly out on me. But he lit his pipe
thoughtfully, dropped the match into the fire, and watched it burn
out before he answered.
"And I'm to consort with my fellow-men, eh?--with the sort you led me
among to-night?" He laughed harshly, with a not ill-humoured snort.
"Is that your prescription? Thank you, I prefer my bad beasts."
"No," I said. "After to-night it's not my prescription. I'll give
you another. I know your work, and that your heart's in it.
But ease down this term as far as the lecture-list allows, and then
at Easter come with Jimmy and me to Wastdale and let me teach your
infant footsteps how to mountaineer. There's nothing like a stiff
climb and a summit for purging a man's mind. . . . I've come to like
mountains ever so much better than big game.
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