laugh at a feller. _You_ didn't know what a wombat
was when I asked you, and _I_ didn't roar," said Ben, giving his hat a
slap, as nothing else was handy.

"The idea of wanting an anaconda tickled me so, I couldn't help it. I
dare say you'd have got me one if I _had_ asked for it, you are such an
obliging chap."

"Of course I would if I could. Shouldn't be surprised if you did some
day, you want such funny things," answered Ben, appeased by the
compliment.

"I'll try the amanuensis first. It's only some one to write for me; I
get so tired doing it without a table. You write well enough, and it
will be good for you to know something about botany. I intend to teach
you, Ben," said Thorny, as if conferring a great favor.

"It looks pretty hard," muttered Ben, with a doleful glance at the book
laid open upon a strew of torn leaves and flowers.

"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.

Diving hap-hazard into his book, Thorny demanded a "trifolium
pratense."

The clever pencil pointed, and Ben brought a red clover, mightily
enjoying the joke, and thinking that _this_ kind of botany wasn't bad
fun.

"Look here, no fooling!" and Thorny sat up to investigate the matter,
so quickly that his sister had not time to sober