ondently.

"He struck me as being very quiet. At any rate, you can judge for
yourself, as we are due to see him within half an hour. You must
tell him that you are a naturalist, as he intends writing a book, in
which a great deal of space will be given to animals. He said he
felt a 'bit shaky on his pins' when it came to scientific terms."

"I should be glad to help him there," said Venning; "but it is too
good. He would never take a youngster like me."

"He said he would rather have a youngster who would carry out his
own views about treating a subject, than a man who would try to
teach him his business. Come along and see him for yourself."

"Within half an hour the two friends who had just left school
entered a room which was part library, part museum, armoury, dining-
room, and cabin, so crammed it was.

"This is my friend Venning, Mr. Hume."

"Glad to see you, Venning. Sit down anywhere."

Compton sat down between the horns of a bleached buffalo skull, but
Venning stood like one in a trance. His hand had been swallowed up
by a huge palm and thick iron-like fingers, and he was staring down
on a pair of the broadest shoulders he had seen, with an arching
chest to match. This was the pigmy he had imagined--this man with
the shoulders of a giant and the chest of a Hercules. Then his eyes
ranged over the walls, gradually recovering their animation.

"Know 'em," said Mr. Hume, waving a bronzed hand towards the wall.

"I think so, sir."

"Just reel off the names."

Venning reeled off the names of a score or more of animals without
hesitation, and Mr. Hume looked pleased.

"There are some men," he said, "who come in here and talk over me
and round me and under me about fur and feather, and they can't tell
a bighorn from a koodoo by the horns on the wall. Now, my friend,
you knew those over there in the corner were the horns of a koodoo,
but do you know his habits?"

"No, sir; but I spent a month watching a Dartmoor deer."

"A month! Can't learn anything in a month, boy; but you've struck
the right book. The pages that are spread out under the sky hold the
right teaching, for those who wish to learn about animals. There are
writers who make a study of structure; they argue from bones, and
classify; but bones don't tell us about the living flesh and blood.
You take my meaning?"

"You make a difference between the structure of animals and their
habits."

"That's so, my lad. Ever read Jeffreys, and the ske