"Go where ?" "Go and find my poor dear father," I cried.

"Why, nurse, am I to sit down quietly at home here, when perhaps my poor father is waiting for me to come to his help ?" "Oh, hush! my dearie; don't talk like that I'm afraid he's dead and gone." "He isn't, nurse," I cried fiercely.

"He's a prisoner somewhere among those New Guinea savages, and I mean to find him and bring him back." Nurse Brown thrust her needle into the big round ball of worsted, and held it up as if for me to see.

Then she took off her glasses with the left hand in the stocking, and shaking her head she exclaimed: "Oh, you bad boy; wasn't it enough for your father to go mad after his botaniky, and want to go collecting furren buttercups and daisies, to break your mother's heart, that you must ketch his complaint and want to go too ?" "My father isn't mad," I said.
"Your father _was_ mad," retorted Nurse Brown, "and I was surprised at him.

What did he ever get by going wandering about collecting his dry orchardses and rubbish, and sending of 'em to England ?" "Fame," I cried, "and honour." "Fame and honour never bought potatoes," said nurse.
"Why, four different plants were named after him." "Oh, stuff and rubbish, boy! What's the good of that when a man gets lost and starves to death in the furren wilds!" "My father was too clever a man to get lost or to starve in the wilds," I said proudly.