"No, it isn't; it's regularly jolly, and you'd be no end of a help if you only knew a little. Now suppose I say, 'Bring me a "ranunculus bulbosus,"' how would you know what I wanted?" demanded Thorny, waving his microscope with a learned air.
"Shouldn't."
"There are quantities of them all round us, and I want to analyze one. See if you can't guess."
Ben stared vaguely from earth to sky, and was about to give it up, when a buttercup fell at his feet, and he caught sight of Miss Celia smiling at him from behind her brother, who did not see the flower.
"S'pose you mean this? I don't call 'em rhinocerus bulburses, so I wasn't sure." And taking the hint as quickly as it was given, Ben presented the buttercup as if he knew all about it.
"You guessed that remarkably well. Now bring me a 'leontodon taraxacum,'" said Thorny, charmed with the quickness of his pupil and glad to display his learning.
Again Ben gazed, but the field was full of early flowers, and if a long pencil had not pointed to a dandelion close by he would have been lost.
"Here you are, sir," he answered with a chuckle, and Thorny took his turn at being astonished now.
"How the dickens did you know that?"
"Try it again, and may be you'll find out," laughed Ben.