“Seems such a pity,” he confided to Joe. “The orchids are very beautiful when they are hanging down from the trees, with their petals looking like the wings of insects and their colour all of such lovely yellows and blues, but we shall only have the dried, bulb-like stems to take back with us, and how do we know that they will ever flower again?”
“If properly dried, a great many of them will,” said Brazier at that moment.
Rob started.
“I didn’t know you were listening, sir,” he said.
“I was not listening, Rob, but you spoke so loudly, I could not help hearing your words. I can quite understand your preference for the brilliant-coloured and metallic-plumaged birds, and also for the lovely insects which we keep seeing, but specimens of most of these have been taken to Europe again and again, while I have already discovered at least four orchids which I am sure are new.”
“But if they do not revive,” said Rob, “we shall have had all our journey for nothing.”
“But they will revive, my boy, you may depend upon that—at least, some of them; and to my mind we shall have done a far greater thing in carrying to England specimens of these gorgeous flowers to live and be perpetuated in our hothouses, than in taking the dried mummies of bird and insect, which, however beautiful, can never by any possibility live again.”
“I didn’t think of that,” said Rob apologetically.
“I suppose not. But there, be content to help me in my collecting; you are getting plenty of adventure, and to my mind, even if we take back nothing, we shall carry with us recollections of natural wonders that will remain imprinted on our brains till the end of our days.”
“He’s quite right,” thought Rob as he sat alone some time after; “but I wish he wouldn’t speak to me as if he were delivering a lecture. Of course I shall help him and work hard, but I do get tired of the flowers. They’re beautiful enough on the trees, but as soon as they are picked they begin to fade and wither away.”