“That I will—if I can,” I cried.
“I know you will, Joe,” he said. “And we’ll bring back the professor with all his collection of new plants for that London firm, on condition that something fresh with a big red and yellow blossom is named after me—lay the Scarlet Grantii, or the Yellow Unluckii in honour of my non-success.”
“You’re never going to let him start, Miss Eleanor?” cried nurse.
“Would you have me stand between my son and his duty, nurse?” cried my mother, flushing.
“Dearie me, no,” sighed the old lady; “only it do seem such a wild-goose chase. There’ll be no one to take care of us, and that dreadful black, Jimmy”—nurse always said his name with a sort of disrelish—“will be hanging about here all the time.”
“Iss, dat’s him, Jimmy, Jimmy, here Jimmy go. Hi—wup—wup—wup, Jimmy go too.”
“Nonsense, Jimmy!” I said; “I’m going to New Guinea to seek my father.”
“Iss. Hi—wup—wup—wup, Jimmy going to look for his fader.”
“Why, you said he was dead,” I cried.
“Iss, Jimmy fader dead, little pickaninny boy; Jimmy go look for him, find him dere.”