In the mean time the naturalist
stood like a statue of amazement, permitting a well-grown ass, against
whose approach he no longer offered his boasted shield of light, to
smell about his person, without comment or hinderance.
"It is your own ass," cried Ellen, the instant she found breath for
words; "your own patient, hard working, hack!"
The Doctor rolled his eyes from the beast to the speaker, and from the
speaker to the beast; but gave no audible expression of his wonder.
"Do you refuse to know an animal that has laboured so long in your
service?" continued the laughing girl. "A beast, that I have heard you
say a thousand times, has served you well, and whom you loved like a
brother!"
"Asinus Domesticus!" ejaculated the Doctor, drawing his breath like
one who had been near suffocation. "There is no doubt of the genus;
and I will always maintain that the animal is not of the species,
equus. This is undeniably Asinus himself, Ellen Wade; but this is not
the Vespertilio Horribilis of the prairies! Very different animals, I
can assure you, young woman, and differently characterized in every
important particular.
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