“Praps not,” said Shaddy drily. “There, lift the bunch down with the bar’l of your gun. Shove the muzzle right in.”
“You do it, Joe,” whispered Rob; “I feel a bit sick. It’s the sun, I think.”
Just then Mr Brazier, who had been scrambling down the trunk of the huge tree by means of the parasites, which gave endless places for hold, dropped to the ground, and stood beating and shaking himself, to get rid of the ants and other insects he had gathered in his trip up to the branch.
“Ah! that’s right, Giovanni,” he said; “no, I must call you Joe, as Rob does.”
“Do, please, sir; it’s ever so much shorter. Here it is,” he continued, as he lifted the bunch of lovely blossoms off the bush on to the clear space where they stood.
“Oh, if I could only show that in London, just as it is!” cried Brazier. “Why, that bunch alone almost repays me for my journey: it is so beautiful and new.”
“Give it a shake, Mr Joe, sir!” said Shaddy.
“Ah, yes, let’s make sure.”
“Can’t be anything else in it,” said Rob boisterously, in his desire to hide the fact that he had been terribly frightened.
“Never you mind whether there is or whether there ain’t, sir,” said Shaddy; “I want that there bunch shook.”