I stood looking very hard at our visitor, Doctor Burnett, and thought
how very different he was to Aunt Sophia. Only a little while before, I
had felt as if I must hate him for behaving so badly to Nap, and for
talking to me in such a cold, contemptuous way. It had seemed as if he
would join with Aunt Sophia in making me uncomfortable, and I thought it
would have been so much pleasanter if he had stayed away.
But now, as I stood watching him, he was becoming quite a hero in my
eyes, for not only had he been abroad seeing the wonders of the world,
but he had suddenly shown a liking for me, and his whole manner was
changed.
When he had spoken to me in the house it had been in a pooh-poohing sort
of fashion, as if I were a stupid troublesome boy, very much in the way,
and as if he wondered at his sister and brother-in-law's keeping me upon
the premises; but now the change was wonderful. The cold distant manner
had gone, and he began to talk to me as if he had known me all my life.
"Shall we go round the garden again, Dick?" said my uncle, after
standing there nodding and smiling at me, evidently feeling very proud
that his brother-in-law should take so much notice of the collection.
"No," said our visitor sharply. "There, get your pipe, Joe, and you can
sit down and look on while I go over Nat's collection. We naturalists
always compare notes--eh, Nat?"
I turned scarlet with excitement and pleasure, while Uncle Joseph rubbed
his hands, beaming with satisfaction, and proceeded to take down his
long clay pipe from where it hung upon two nails in the wall, and his
little tobacco jar from a niche below the rafters.
"That's what I often do here, Dick," he said; "I sit and smoke and give
advice--when it is asked, and Nat goes on with his stuffing and
preserving."
"Then now, you may sit down and give advice--when it is asked," said our
visitor smiling, "while Nat and I compare notes. Who taught you how to
stuff birds, Nat?"
"I--I taught myself, sir," I replied.
"Taught yourself?" he said, pinching one of my birds--a starling that I
had bought for a penny of a man with a gun.
"Yes, sir; I pulled Polly to pieces."
"You did what?" he cried, bursting into a roar of laughter. "Why, who
was Polly--one of the maids?"
"Oh no, sir! Aunt Sophy's stuffed parrot."
"Well, really, Nat," he said, laughing most heartily, "you're the
strangest boy I ever met."
"Am I, sir?" I said, feeling a little chilled again, for he seemed to
be laughing unpleasantly at me.
"That you are, Nat; but I like strange boys. So you pulled Polly to
pieces, eh? And found out where the naturalists put the wires, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"And how do you preserve the skins?"
"With arsenical soap, sir."
"That's right; so do I."
"But it's very dangerous stuff, sir," I said eagerly.
"Not if it is properly used, my boy," he said, taking up bird after bird
and examining it carefully. "A fire is a very dangerous thing if you
thrust your hand into it, and Uncle Joe's razors are dangerous things if
they are not properly used. You see I don't trouble them much," he
added smiling.
"No, indeed, sir," I said, as I glanced at his long beard.
"I don't have hot water for shaving brought to me, Nat, when I'm at sea,
my boy, or out in the jungle. It's rough work there."
"But it must be very nice, sir," I said eagerly.
"Very, my boy, when you lie down to sleep beneath a tree, so hungry that
you could eat your boots, and not knowing whether the enemy that attacks
you before morning will be a wild beast, a poisonous serpent, or a
deadly fever."
"But it must be very exciting, sir," I cried.
"Very, my boy," he said drily. "Yes: that bird's rough, but I like the
shape. There's nature in it--at least as much as you can get by
imitation. Look, Joe, there's a soft roundness about that bird. It
looks alive. Some of our best bird-stuffers have no more notion of what
a bird is like in real life than a baby. What made you put that tomtit
in that position, Nat?" he said, turning sharply to me.
"That?--that's how they hang by the legs when they are picking the buds,
sir," I said nervously, for I was quite startled by his quick, sudden
way.
"To be sure it is, Nat, my boy. That's quite right. Always take nature
as your model, and imitate her as closely as you can. Some of the
stuffed birds at the British Museum used to drive me into a rage. Glad
to see you have the true ring in you, my boy."
I hardly knew what he meant by the "true ring", but it was evidently
meant kindly, and I felt hotter than ever; but my spirits rose as I saw
how pleased Uncle Joe was.
"You can stuff birds, then, sir?" I said, after a pause, during which
our visitor made himself very busy examining everything I had.
"Well, yes, Nat, after a fashion. I'm not clever at it, for I never
practise mounting. I can make skins."
"Make skins, sir?"
"Yes, my boy. Don't you see that when I am in some wild place shooting
and collecting, every scrap of luggage becomes a burden."
"Yes, sir; of course," I said, nodding my head sagely, "especially if
the roads are not good."
"Roads, my boy," he said laughing; "the rivers and streams are the only
roads in such places as I travel through. Then, of course, I can't use
wires and tow to distend my birds, so we make what we call skins. That
is to say, after preparing the skin, all that is done is to tie the long
bones together, and fill the bird out with some kind of wild cotton,
press the head back on the body by means of a tiny paper cone or
sugar-paper, put a band round the wings, and dry the skin in the sun."
"Yes, I know, sir," I cried eagerly; "and you pin the paper round the
bird with a tiny bamboo skewer, and put another piece of bamboo through
from head to tail."
"Why, how do you know?" he said wonderingly.
"Oh! Nat knows a deal," said Uncle Joe, chuckling. "We're not such
stupid people as you think, Dick, even if we do stay at home."
"I've got a skin or two, sir," I said, "and they were made like that."
As I spoke I took the two skins out of an old cigar-box.
"Oh! I see," he said, as he took them very gently and smoothed their
feathers with the greatest care. "Where did you get these, Nat?"
"I bought them with my pocket-money in Oxford Street, sir," I said, as
Uncle Joe, who had not before seen them, leaned forward.
"And do you know what they are, my boy?" said our visitor.
"No, sir; I have no books with pictures of them in, and the man who sold
them to me did not know. Can you tell me, sir?"
"Yes, Nat, I think so," he said quietly. "This pretty dark bird with
the black and white and crimson plumage is the rain-bird--the
blue-billed gaper; and this softly-feathered fellow with the bristles at
the side of his bill is a trogon."
"A trogon, sir?"
"Yes, Nat, a trogon; and these little bamboo skewers tell me directly
that the birds came from somewhere in the East."