He pushed his chair away from the table and sat gazing at me with a frown upon his face, then he jumped up and began walking swiftly up and down the room.
“I would hardly let you know that I was with you, uncle, and there should be nothing you wanted that I would not do. Don’t be angry with me for asking to go, for I do want to go with you so very, very much.”
“Angry, my boy! No, not angry,” he cried; “but no, no; it is impossible.”
“Don’t say that, uncle,” I cried; “I would work so hard.”
“Yes, yes, my boy, I know that; but it would not be just to you to drag you away there to those wild lands to live like a savage half your time.”
“But I should like that, uncle,” I cried excitedly.
“To expose you to risks of voyaging, from the savages, and from disease. No, no, Nat, you must not ask me. It would not do.”
“Oh, uncle!” I cried, with such a pitiful look of disappointment on my face, that he stopped and laid his hand upon my shoulder.
“Why, Nat, my boy,” he said in a soft, gentle way, very different to his usual mode of speaking, “nothing would be more delightful to me than to have you for my companion; not for my servant, to work so hard, but to be my friend, helpmate, and counsellor in all my journeyings. Why, it would be delightful to have you with me, boy, to enjoy with me the discovery of some new specimen.”
“Which we had hunted out in some wild jungle where man had never been before, uncle!”