Five Weeks in a Balloon Chapter 3

**Jules Verne** (0:26)
CHAPTER III.
THE DOCTOR'S FRIEND. THE ORIGIN OF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. DICK KENNEDY AT LONDON. AN UNEXPECTED BUT NOT VERY CONSOLING PROPOSAL. A PROVERD BY NO MEANS CHERRY.
A FEW NAMES FROM THE AFRICAN MARTEROLOGY. THE ADVANTAGES OF A BALLOON.
DOCTOR FERGUSON'S SECRET.
Doctor Ferguson had a friend, not another self, indeed, an alter ego, for friendship could not exist between two beings exactly alike. But if they possessed different qualities, aptitudes, and temperaments, Dick Kennedy and Samuel Ferguson lived with one and the same heart, and that gave them no great trouble—in fact, quite the reverse.
Dick Kennedy was a Scotchman, in the full acceptation of the word, open, resolute, and headstrong. He lived in the town of Leith, which is near Edinburgh, and, in truth, is a mere suburb of Ald Reekie. Sometimes he was a fisherman, but he was always and everywhere a determined hunter, and that was nothing remarkable for a son of Caledonia, who had known some little climbing among the Highland Mountains.
He was cited as a wonderful shot with the rifle, since not only could he split a bullet on a knife-blade, but he could divide it into two such equal parts that, upon weighing them, scarcely any difference would be perceptible.
Kennedy's countenance strikingly recalled that of Herbert Glenn Dinning, as Sir Walter Scott depicted it in the monastery. His stature was above six feet, full of grace and easy movement. He had seen gifted with Herculean strength, a face in brown by the sun, eyes keen in black, a natural air of daring courage, in fine, something sound, solid, and reliable, and his entire person spoke, at first glance, in favor of the body Scott.
The acquaintance of these two friends had been formed in India, when they belonged to the same regiment. While Dick would be out on pursuit of the tiger and the elephant, Samuel would be in search of plants and insects. Each could call himself expert in his own province, and more than one rare botanical specimen, that to science was as great a victory won as the conquest of a pair of ivory tusks, became the doctor's booty.
These two young men, moreover, never had occasion to save each other's lives or to render any reciprocal service, hence an unalterable friendship. Destiny sometimes bore them apart, but sympathy always united them again. Since their return to England, they have been frequently separated by the doctor's distant expeditions. But on his return, the latter never failed to go, not to ask for hospitality, but to bestow some weeks of his presence at the home of his crony Dick.
As Scott talked to the past, the doctor busily prepared for the future. The one looked back, the other forward. Hence a restless spirit personified in Ferguson. Perfect calmness typified in Kennedy. Such was the contrast. After his journey to the Sebed, the doctor had remained nearly two years without hinting at new explorations. And Dick, supposing that his friend's instinct for travel and thirst for adventure, at a length died out, was perfectly enchanted. They would have ended badly, some day or other, he thought to himself. No matter what experience one has with men, one does not travel always with impunity among cannibals and wild beasts. So Kennedy besought the doctor to tie up his bark for life, having done enough for science, and too much for the gratitude of men.
The doctor contented himself with making no reply to this. He remained absorbed in his own reflections, giving himself up to secret calculations, passing his nights among heaps of figures and making experiments with the strangest-looking machinery, inexplicable to everybody but himself. It could readily be guessed, though, that some great thought was fermenting in his brain. What can he have in planning? wanted Kennedy, when in the month of January his friend quitted him to return to London. He found out one warning when he looked in the Daily Telegraph. Merciful heaven! he exclaimed. The lunatic, the madman! Cross Africa in a balloon? Nothing but that was wanted to cap the climax. That's what he's been bothering his wits about these two years past.
Now, reader, substitute for all these exclamation points, as many ringing thumbs with a brawny fist upon the table, and you have some idea of the manual exercise that Dick went through while he thus spoke.
When his confidential maid of all work, the agent Elspeth, tried to insinuate that the whole thing might be a hoax. Not a bit of it, he said he. Don't I know my man? Isn't it just like him? Travel through the air. There, now, he's jealous of the eagles. Next. No, I warn't you, he'll not do it. I'll find a way to stop him. He—why, if they'd let him alone, and he'd start the day for the moon..