that," cried the old lady; "a-comparing that black savage to Adam! You
ought to be ashamed of yourself. It all comes of living in this
horrible place. I wish we were back at Putney."

"Hang Putney!" I cried. "Putney, indeed! where you couldn't go half a
yard off a road without trespassing. Oh, nurse, you can't understand
it," I cried enthusiastically; "if you were to get up in the dark one
morning and go with Jimmy--"

"Me go with Jimmy!" cried the old lady with a snort.

"And get right out towards the mountain and see the sunrise, and the
parrots in flocks, and the fish glancing like arrows down the silver
river--"

"There's just how your poor dear pa used to talk, and nearly broke your
poor ma's heart."

"No, he didn't; he was too fond of her," I said; "only he felt it his
duty to continue his researches, the same that brought him out here,
and--oh, I shall find him and bring him back."

"Don't, don't, don't! there's a good boy; don't talk to me like that.
You're sixteen now, and you ought to know better."

"I don't want to know any better than that, nurse. I know it's my duty
to go, and I shall go."

"You'll kill your poor ma, sir."

"No, I sha'n't," I said. "She won't like my going at first, because it
will seem lonely for her out here; but she'll be as pleased as can be
afterwards. Look here: my mother--"

"Say _ma_, Master Joe, dear. Doey, please; it's so much more genteel."

"Stuff! it's Frenchy; mother's old English. Mother don't believe
father's dead, does she?"

"Well, no, my dear; she's as obstinate as you are about that."

"And she's right. Why, he's only been away four years, and that isn't
so very long in a country where you have to cut every step of the way."

"Cooey--cooey--woo--woo--woo--woo--why yup!"

"Cooey--cooey!" I echoed back, and nurse held he hands to her ears.

"Now don't you go to him, Master Joseph; now please don't," said the old
lady.

"Mass Joe! hi Mass Joe! Jimmy fine wallaby. Tick fass in big hole big
tree."

Just then my first-lieutenant and Nurse Brown's great object of dislike,
Jimmy, thrust his shiny black face and curly head in at the door.

"Go away, sir," cried nurse.

"Heap fis--come kedge fis--million tousand all up a creek. Jimmy go
way?"

He stood grinning and nodding, with his hands in the pocket holes of his
only garment, a pair of trousers with legs cut off to about mid-thigh.

"If you don't take that nasty black fellow away, Mas