d not be blamed for want of activity or animal
spirits. Indeed, the nuts had scarcely been pointed out to him when he
bounded up the tall stem of the tree like a squirrel, and in a few
minutes returned with three nuts, each as large as a man's fist.

"You had better keep them till we return," said Jack. "Let us finish
our work before eating."

"So be it, captain; go ahead!" cried Peterkin, thrusting the nuts into
his trousers pocket. "In fact, I don't want to eat just now; but I
would give a good deal for a drink. Oh, that I could find a spring! but
I don't see the smallest sign of one hereabouts. I say, Jack, how does
it happen that you seem to be up to everything? You have told us the
names of half-a-dozen trees already, and yet you say that you were never
in the South Seas before."

"I'm not up to everything, Peterkin, as you'll find out ere long,"
replied Jack with a smile; "but I have been a great reader of books of
travel and adventure all my life, and that has put me up to a good many
things that you are, perhaps, not acquainted with."

"Oh, Jack, that's all humbug! If you begin to lay everything to the
credit of books, I'll quite lose my opinion of you," cried Peterkin with
a look of contempt. "I've seen a lot o' fellows that were _always_
poring over books, and when they came to try to _do_ anything, they were
no better than baboons!"

"You are quite right," retorted Jack; "and I have seen a lot of fellows,
who never looked into books at all, who knew nothing about anything
except the things they had actually seen, and very little they knew even
about these. Indeed, some were so ignorant that they did not know that
cocoa-nuts grew on cocoa-nut trees!"

I could not refrain from laughing at this rebuke, for there was much
truth in it as to Peterkin's ignorance.

"Humph! maybe you're right," answered Peterkin; "but I would not give
_tuppence_ for a man of books if he had nothing else in him."

"Neither would I," said Jack; "but that's no reason why you should run
books down, or think less of me for having read them. Suppose, now,
Peterkin, that you wanted to build a ship, and I were to give you a long
and particular account of the way to do it, would not that be very
useful?"

"No doubt of it," said Peterkin, laughing.

"And suppose I were to write the account in a letter instead of telling
you in words, would that be less useful?"

"Well--no, perhaps not."

"Well, suppose I were to print