Hanky's occasional frankness put people off
their guard. He was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory Professor,
who, being a Professor, would of course profess, but would not lie more
than was in the bond; he was log-rolled and log-rolling, but still, in a
robust wolfish fashion, human.
Panky, on the other hand, was hardly human; he had thrown himself so
earnestly into his work, that he had become a living lie. If he had had
to play the part of Othello he would have blacked himself all over, and
very likely smothered his Desdemona in good earnest. Hanky would hardly
have blacked himself behind the ears, and his Desdemona would have been
quite safe.
Philosophers are like quails in the respect that they can take two or
three flights of imagination, but rarely more without an interval of
repose. The Professors had imagined my father to be a poacher and a
ranger; they had imagined the quails to be wanted for Sunday's banquet;
they had imagined that they imagined (at least Panky had) that they were
about to eat landrails; they were now exhausted, and cowered down into
the grass of their ordinary conversation, paying no more attention to my
father than if he had been a log. He, poor man, drank in every word they
said, while seemingly intent on nothing but his quails, each one of which
he cut up with a knife borrowed from Hanky.
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