u call it, biceps--to do it."

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite," said Vane, laughing.

"Don't," whispered Macey; "you're making Distie mad again. He feels
we're talking about him. Go on about the vegetables."

"All right. There you are then. That's all branched bur-reed."

"What, that thing with the little spikey horse-chestnuts on it?"

"That's it."

"Good to eat?"

"I never tried it. There's something that isn't," continued Vane,
pointing at some vivid green, deeply-cut and ornamental leaves.

"What is it? Looks as if it would make a good salad."

"Water hemlock. Very poisonous."

"Do not chew the hemlock rank--growing on the weedy bank," quoted Macey.
"I wish you wouldn't begin nursery rhymes. You've started me off now.
I should like some of those bulrushes," and he pointed to a cluster of
the brown poker-like growth rising from the water, well out of reach
from the bank.

"Those are not bulrushes."

"What are they, then?"

"It is the reed-mace."

"They'll do just as well by that name. I say, Distie, I want to cut
some of them."

"Go on rowing," said Distin, haughtily, to Gilmore, without glancing at
Macey.

"All right, my lord," muttered Macey. "Halloo! What was that? a big
fish?"

"No; it was a water-rat jumped in."

"All right again," said Macey good-humouredly. "I don't know anything
at all. There never was such an ignorant chap as I am."

"Give me the other scull, Gilmore," said Distin, just then.

"All right, but hadn't we better go a little higher first? The stream
runs very hard just here."

Distin uttered a sound similar to that made by a turkey-cock before he
begins to gobble--a sound that may be represented by the word _Phut_,
and they preserved their relative places.

"What are those leaves shaped like spears?" said Macey, giving Vane a
peculiar look.

"Arrowheads."

"There, I do know what those are!" cried Macey, quickly as a shoal of
good-sized fish darted of from a gravelly shallow into deep water.

"Well, what are they?"

"Roach and dace."

"Neither," said Vane, laughing heartily.

"Well, I--oh, but they are."

"No."

"What then?"

"Chub."

"How do you know?"

"By the black edge round their tails."

"I say!" cried Macey; "how do you know all these precious things so
readily?"

"Walks with uncle," replied Vane. "I don't know much but he seems to
know everything."

"Why I thought he couldn't know anything but about salts and senna, an