CHAPTER I.
THE HUNTER "Dick, why do you study Arabic so closely ?" "To understand Arabic." "And further ?" Dick Compton closed his book and placed it carefully in a leather case.
"It is a pity you were born curious, Venning, otherwise you would have made an excellent companion for a studious man.

'Why do I wish to understand Arabic ?' Why do you stand on one leg watching a tadpole shed its tail." "Excuse me, I always sit down to watch a tadpole." "Yet I have seen you poised on one leg for an hour like a heron, afraid to put down the other foot lest you should scare some wretched pollywog.

Why ?" "I do it for the love of the thing, Dick.

What is a page of your crooked signs compared with a single green pond and all that it holds ?" "By Jove! Is that so--and would you find a volume in a caterpillar ?" "Why not?
Listen to me, Dick.

Take the silver-spiked caterpillar, with a skin of black satin and a length that runs to four inches.