In fact, Gideon didn't seem so hopeful about Tomkins getting the prize as you might have thought, and it surprised Tomkins a good deal. Gideon had a right to speak, because in his time he'd won this prize himself. When he won it, the subject happened to be 'Postage Stamps'; which was, of course, like giving the prize to Gideon, owing to his tremendous knowledge about money in every shape.
The time was July, and so next half-holiday Tomkins and me went into the country for a walk, for Tomkins to freshen up his ideas about the wild flowers.
He certainly knew a lot, but several things that I picked bothered him, and once or twice, I think, he was altogether wrong about them. He also picked a good many that he evidently didn't know at all, and carried them back to school to ask Mr. Briggs the names of them and anything worth mentioning about them.
Then, coming back through Merivale, who should we see but Macmullen, with his nose flat against the window of an old book shop there!
"Look here," he said, "there's a second-hand botany in here for sevenpence, and I've only got fivepence. I tried the man by showing him the fivepence all at once, but he wouldn't come down. Can one of you chaps lend me twopence till next week?"
He looked at the flowers Tomkins had picked as he spoke.
"D'you know many of them?" said Tomkins, knowing well that Mac. wouldn't.
"Only that—that nettle," said Macmullen rather doubtfully.
"It isn't a nettle," said Tomkins. But he was so pleased to see what a frightful duffer Macmullen really was, that he lent him twopence on the spot.
I thought he was rather a fool to increase Macmullen's chances like this; but Tomkins said, in his large way, that a few facts out of a botany book wouldn't help Macmullen now, especially if he didn't know the difference between sage and nettles.