“I can’t, father; oh, I can’t,” cried the boy despairingly.
“Oh, that settles it!” said Doctor Instow, jumping up. “You’ve done it now, Jack. You’re worse than I thought.”
“Then you will come?” cried Sir John, holding out his hand.
“I will,” cried the doctor, “wherever you like to go;” and he brought down his hand with a sounding slap into his friend’s. “Here, Jack,” he cried directly after, “shake hands too. Come, be a man. In less than six months those dull filmy eyes of yours will be flashing with health, and you’ll be wondering that you could ever have sat gazing at me in this miserable woe-begone fashion. There, pluck up, my lad. You don’t know what is before you in the strange lands we shall visit. Why, when your father and I were boys of your age, we should have gone wild with delight at the very anticipation of such a cruise, and rushed off to our bedrooms to begin packing up at once, and crammed our boxes with all kinds of impossible unnecessaries—eh, Meadows?”
“Yes; our skates, cricket-bats—” cried Sir John.
“And fishing-rods, and sticks. I say, though, we must take a good supply of sea and fresh-water tackle. Fancy trying some river or lake in the tropics that has never been fished before.”
“Yes, and a walk at the jungle edge, butterfly-catching,” cried Sir John eagerly.
“Yes, and a tramp after rare birds, and always in expectation of bringing down one never yet seen by science,” said the doctor.
“And the flowers and plants,” said Sir John, “We must take plenty of cases and preserving paste.”
“And entomological boxes and tins.”