“I don’t know. Doctor’s orders, you see. Still—well, for one thing, we’ve been wondering, of course, who you are, and how you got into the hobble we found you in.”
“Well, I’m Oakley, and I’ve been inland a year and a half in the plant-hunting line.”
“That so? I’m Haviland, and I’ve been up rather more than two years in the bug-hunting line, as the Americans would call it. Ornithology, too.”
“So! Made a good haul?”
“Uncommonly. We’ve got some specimens here that’ll make our names for us.”
“Let’s see them,” said the other eagerly. “I was—am, in fact—keen on beetles, but I’m professionally in plants now.”
And then these two enthusiasts set to work comparing notes. They clean forgot about the circumstances of their meeting or knowing more about each other; forgot recent perils and the brooding mysteries of the wilderness, as they hammered away at their pet subject, and talked bird and beetle to their hearts’ content. In the midst of which a displeased voice struck in:—
“I’d like to ask if that’s what you call keeping quiet, now.”
Both started guiltily.
“My fault, doctor,” said Haviland. “I let him go on. He’s in the same line as ourselves, you know.”