The Short Stories of H. G. Wells by H.G. Wells

Author:H.G. Wells [Wells, H.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
Publisher: The University of Adelaide Library
Published: 2011-11-25T08:01:18+00:00

THE RECONCILIATION

(‘THE BULLA’)

Temple had scarcely been with Findlay five minutes before he felt his old resentments, and the memory of that unforgettable wrong growing vivid again. But with the infatuation of his good resolution still upon him, he maintained the air of sham reconciliation that Findlay had welcomed so eagerly. They talked of this and that, carefully avoiding the matter of separation. Temple at first spoke chiefly of his travels. He stood between the cabinet of minerals and the fireplace, his whisky on the mantel-board, while Findlay sat with his chair pushed back from his writing-desk, on which were scattered the dozen little skulls of hedgehogs and shrew mice upon which he had been working.

Temple’s eye fell upon them, and abruptly brought his mind round from the topic of West Africa. “And you,” said Temple. “While I have been wandering I suppose you have been going on steadily.”

“Drumming along,” said Findlay.

“To the Royal Society and fame and all the things we used to dream about — how long is it?”

“Five years — since our student days.”

Temple glanced round the room, and his eye rested for a moment on a round greyish-drab object that lay in a corner near the door. “The same fat books and folios, only more of them, the same smell of old bones, and dissection — is it the same one —? In the window. Fame is your mistress?”

“Fame,” said Findlay. “But it’s hardly fame. The herd outside say, ‘Eminence in comparative anatomy.’”

“Eminence in comparative anatomy. No marrying — no avarice.”

“None,” said Findlay, glancing askance at him.

“I suppose it’s the happiest way of living. But it wouldn’t be the thing for me. Excitement — but, I say —!” his eye had fallen again on that fungoid shape of drabbish-grey —, “there’s a limit to scientific inhumanity. You really mustn’t keep your door open with a human brainpan.”

He went across the room as he spoke and picked the thing up. “Brainpan!” said Findlay. “Oh, that! Man alive, that’s not a brainpan. Where’s your science?”

“No. I see it’s not,” said Temple, carrying the object in his hand as he came back to his former position and scrutinising it curiously. “But what the devil is it?”

“Don’t you know?” said Findlay.

The thing was about thrice the size of a man’s hand, like a rough watch-pocket of thick bone.

Findlay laughed almost naturally. “You have a bad memory — it’s a whale’s ear-bone.”

“Of course,” said Temple, his appearance of interest vanishing. “The bulla of a whale. I’ve forgotten a lot of these things.”

He half turned, and put the thing on top of the cabinet beside Findlay’s dumb-bells.

“If you are serious in your music-hall proposal,” he said, reverting to a jovial suggestion of Findlay’s, “I am at your service. I’m afraid — I may find myself a little old for that sort of thing — I haven’t tried one for ages.”

“But we are meeting to commemorate youth,” said Findlay.

“And bury our early manhood,” said Temple. “Well, well — yes, let us go to the music-hall, by all means, if you desire it.

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