"Yes, mother." Jack was a little damped to find his views received so quietly.
"That is, with your permission. But you see all through this book he is inviting the boys to go. He was but a lad when he killed his first lion. He says nothing would delight him more than to take some fine courageous fellow into the jungle, and teach him how to trap elephants and hunt tigers. Oh, if I could wing a tiger with my gun!"
"Will you thread my needle, Bessy? I think if you wait, you will be a better shot in a year or two, probably, Jack."
"You think I couldn't stand it," blustered Jack. "Why, I've got muscles on me like iron. I tell you, nothing would please me better than footing it through the jungle for months, eating leopard and monkey steaks, and fighting gorillas. Those negroes were poor stuff for hunters, I think! Used to give out in a week or two. So did Du Chaillu. Why, I could go on for months, and never complain."
"Who was that whining over his grammar, awhile ago?" asked his sister.
"That's a very different matter," stammered Jack angrily. "What kind of sense is there in amaba--bis--bus! That's stuff! If I had a chance with my gun now, at a lion, say--
"If you cannot conquer nouns and verbs, Jack," said Mrs. Leigh, "I am not afraid for the wild beasts."
"As for Bess, she needn't laugh," growled Jack. "What does a girl know, with her curls, and paniers, and folderols? She never even read Du Chaillu;" and he stamped into the dining-room and began to kick off his boots.
"You should not tease your brother, Bessy."
Bessy laughed. She was a fat, pretty, good-tempered girl, very fond of Jack and just as fond of squabbling with him.