Rob Harlows Adventures | Page 4

came to you at Buenos Ayres."
"What, when he was waiting for the guide Captain Ossolo said he could recommend?"
Shaddy nodded.
"He looked quite scared at me. Most people do; and the captain had quite a job to persuade him that I should be the very man."
"Yes, and it was not till the captain said he would not get one half so good that he engaged you."
"That's so, my lad. But I am a rum 'un, ain't I?"
"You're not nice-looking, Shaddy," said Rob, gazing at him thoughtfully; "but I never notice it now, and--well, yes, you are always very kind to me. I like you," added the boy frankly.
Shaddy's one eye flashed, and he did not look half so ferocious.
"Thank ye, my lad," he cried, stretching out his great hand. "Would you mind laying your fist in there and saying that again?"
Rob laughed, looked full in the man's eye, and laid his hand in the broad palm, but wished the next moment that he had not, for the fingers closed over his with a tremendous grip.
"I say, you hurt!" he cried.
"Ay, I suppose so," said Shaddy, loosing his grip a little. "I forgot that. Never mind. It was meant honest, and Mr Brazier shan't repent bringing me."
"I don't think he does now," said Rob. "He told me yesterday that you were a staunch sort of fellow."
"Ah! thank ye," said Shaddy, smiling more broadly; and his ruffianly, piratical look was superseded by a frank aspect which transformed him. "You see, Mr Harlow, I'm a sort of a cocoa-nutty fellow, all shaggy husk outside. You find that pretty tough till you get through it, and then you ain't done, for there's the shell, and that's hard enough to make you chuck me away; but if you persevere with me, why, there inside that shell is something that ain't peach, nor orange, nor soft banana, but not such very bad stuff after all."
"I should think it isn't," cried Rob. "I say, it would make some of our boys at home stare who only know cocoa-nut all hard and woody, and the milk sickly enough to throw away, if they could have one of the delicious creamy nuts that we get here."
"Yes, my lad, they're not bad when you're thirsty, nor the oranges either."
"Delicious!" cried Rob.
"Ay. I've lived for weeks at a time on nothing but oranges and cocoanuts, and a bit of fish caught just now and then with my hands, when I've been exploring like and hunting for gold."
"For gold? Is there gold about here?"
"Lots, my lad, washed down the rivers. I've often found it."
"Then you ought to be rich."
The man chuckled.
"Gold sounds fine, sir, but it's a great cheat. My 'sperience of gold has always been that it takes two pounds' worth of trouble to get one pound's worth o' metal. So that don't pay. Seems to me from what I hear that it's the same next door with dymons."
"Next door?"
"Well, up yonder in Brazil. I should say your Mr Brazier will do better collecting vegetables, if so be he can find any one to buy 'em afterwards. What do you call 'em--orkards?"
"Orchids," said Rob.
"But who's going to buy 'em?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Rob, laughing. "There are plenty of people glad to get them in England for their hothouses. Besides, there are the botanists always very eager to see any new kinds."
"Better try and get some new kinds o' birds. There's lots here with colours that make your eyes ache. They'd be better than vegetables. Why, right up north--I've never seen any down here--there's little humpy birds a bit bigger than a cuckoo, with tails a yard long and breasts ever so much ruddier than robins', and all the rest of a green that shines as if the feathers were made of copper and gold mixed."
"Mr Brazier hasn't come after birds."
"Well then, look here; I can put him up to a better way of making money. What do you say to getting lots of things to send to the 'Logical Gardens? Lions and tigers and monkeys--my word, there are some rum little beggars of monkeys out here."
"No lions in America, Shaddy."
"Oh, ain't there, my lad? I'll show you plenty, leastwise what we calls lions here. I'll tell you what--snakes and serpents. They'd give no end for one of our big water-snakes. My word, there are some whackers up these rivers."
"How big?" said Rob, hiding a smile--"two hundred feet long?"
"Gammon!" growled Shaddy; "I ain't one of your romancing sort. Truth's big enough for me. So's the snakes I've seen. I've had a skin of one fellow six-and-twenty foot long, and as opened out nearly nine foot laid flat. I dessay it stretched a bit in the skinning, but it shrunk a bit in the drying, so that was about its size, and I've