ou've said to me scores of times
that there was no grander education for a man than the study of the
endless beauties of nature."

"Be quiet, Ned. There never was such a fellow as you for disputing."

"But you did say so, uncle."

"Well, sir, and it's quite right. It is grand! But you are not a man."

"Not yet, but I suppose I shall be, some day."

"Not if I take you out with me to catch jungle fever."

"Oh, bother the old jungle fever!"

"So say I, Ned, and success to quinine."

"To be sure. Hurrah for quinine! You said you took it often in swampy
places to keep off the fever."

"That's quite right, Ned."

"Very well then, uncle; I'll take it too, as much as ever you like.
Now, will you let me go?"

"And what would the rector say?"

"I don't know, uncle. I don't want to be a barrister. I want to be
what you are."

"A rough, roaming, dreamy, restless being, who is always wandering about
all over the world."

"And what would England have been, uncle, if some of us had not been
restless and wandered all over the world."

Johnstone Murray, gentleman and naturalist, sat back in his chair and
laughed.

"Oh, you may laugh, uncle!" said the boy with his face flushed. "You
laugh because I said some of us: I meant some of you. Look at the
discoveries that have been made; look at the wonders brought home; look
at that, for instance," cried the boy, snatching up the piece of pale,
yellowish-green, metallic-looking stone. "See there; by your
discoveries you were able to tell me that this piece which you brought
home from abroad is pyrites, and--"

"Hold your tongue, you young donkey. I did not bring that stone home
from abroad, for I picked it up the other day under the cliff at
Ventnor, and you might have known what it was from any book on chemistry
or mineralogy.--So you want to travel?"

"Yes, uncle, yes!" cried the boy.

"Very well, then; get plenty of books, and read them in an easy-chair,
and then you can follow the footsteps of travellers all round the world
without getting shipwrecked, or having your precious soft young body
damaged in any way."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed the boy; "it's very miserable not to be able
to do as you like."

"No, it isn't, stupid! It's very miserable to be able to do nearly as
you like. Nobody can quite, from the Queen down to the dirtiest little
boy in the streets. The freest man finds that he has the hardest master
to satisfy--himself."

"Oh, I say