“Nothing that may not be as well done at another time. I must insist upon bearing my share of the work of constructing a camp which you have been courteous enough to invite me to share.”
“But you don’t sleep under a roof—even a flimsy one of palmete leaves,” objected Dick. “We invited you to join us here only because we like good company.”
“Thank you for the compliment. No, I do not sleep under a roof, but your roof will be a great convenience and comfort to me in other ways.”
“I don’t see—” Cal began, but Dunbar broke in.
“You don’t see how? No, of course not. How should you? But that is only because you know so little of my tasks. I must write my scientific reports and articles carefully and voluminously, and I must make accurate color drawings of my specimens to accompany my text. I am badly behind with my work in these ways, and the very best time to bring up the arrears is of long, rainy days, when the living things I must study—all of them except the fishes—are hidden away in such shelters as they can find. But I cannot sit in the rain and write or draw. That would only be to spoil materials of which I have all too little already. So the rainy days are lost to me, or have been, hitherto. Now that I am to enjoy your hospitality, I shall sit in your shelter when it rains, and get a world of writing and drawing done.”
“Well, at any rate, we shall not need your help in this work, and we have no tool for you to work with if we did. As to our little hospitality, it mustn’t and doesn’t involve any obligation on your part. If it did it wouldn’t be hospitality at all, but something very different. Why not put in your time on your own work?”
“I would, if my head didn’t object,” the man of science answered rather dejectedly, Cal thought, but with a smile.
“Have you a headache, then?” the youth asked, putting as much sympathy into his tone as was possible to a robust specimen of young manhood who had never had a headache in his life. “It must be very distressing.”
“No, I haven’t a headache,” the professor answered. “I wish it was only that. No, my head isn’t clear to-day, and when I try to work it gets things jumbled up a bit. I tried this morning to write a scientific account of the habits of a certain fish that these waters bear, and somehow I got him out into the bushes using wings that I had never observed before. Now I must go and catch another specimen of that fish and examine it carefully to see if the wings are really there or not. You see in cases of doubt a scientist dares not trust anything to conjecture or memory. He must examine and make sure.”
So saying, the professor started off to catch the fish he wanted. He had spoken in a half jocular tone and with a mischievous smile playing about his lips, though his words were serious enough.