tly. "Scientific people always get laughed at. I
don't mind."

"More do I."

"I've had lots of fun out of all these things, and it's better than
racing all over a field, kicking a bag of wind about, and knocking one
another down in a charge, and then playing more sacks on the mill, till
a fellow's most squeezed flat. I hate football, and so do you."

"No, you don't," I said; "you love a game sometimes as much as I do.
What I don't like in it is, that when I'm hurt, I always want to hit
somebody."

"Yes, that is the worst of it," he said quietly; "and since I've found
out that I can fight, I'm ever so much readier to punch anybody's head."

"But you don't."

"No; I don't, because it don't seem fair. I don't care, though, how you
laugh. I shall go on with my natural history even when I grow a man,
and have to drive round like father does, giving people stuff. It gives
you something to think about."

"Yes, it gives you something to think about," I said merrily. "I always
get thinking about these."

"I say: don't," cried Mercer; "you've upset my owl on to that blackbird.
I wish you wouldn't be so fond of larking."

"All right, Tom; I won't tease you," I said. "It's all right, and I'll
always go with you collecting. I never knew there were half so many
things to see out of doors, till I went out with you. When shall we
have a regular good walk through the General's woods?"

"Any time we can get away," he cried, brightening up. "I'm ready."

"All right," I said; "then we will go first chance."

"We must tell Bob Hopley we're going, or he may hear us in the wood, and
pepper us, thinking it's old Magglin."

"What?"

"He said he would, if ever he caught him there."

"Seen him lately?" I said.

"No; have you?"

"Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley's."

"One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I
suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I'm sure
he's had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn't owe him. I wish I
wasn't so soft."

"So do I."

"Ah, now you're laughing at me. Never mind, I've done with him now.
Never a penny does he ever get out of me again."

"Till next time, Tom," I said.

"No, nor next time neither. I don't suppose we shall see much more of
him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching,
he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says
that many a time h