“Yes,” said I, “my mind is made up.”

“Well you know, it isn’t a very good profession for making money. Not at all, it isn’t. Most of the good naturalists don’t make any money whatever. All they do is spend money, buying butterfly-nets and cases for birds’ eggs and things. It is only now, after I have been a naturalist for many years, that I am beginning to make a little money from the books I write.”

“I don’t care about money,” I said. “I want to be a naturalist. Won’t you please come and have dinner with my mother and father next Thursday—I told them I was going to ask you—and then you can talk to them about it. You see, there’s another thing: if I’m living with you, and sort of belong to your house and business, I shall be able to come with you next time you go on a voyage.”

“Oh, I see,” said he, smiling. “So you want to come on a voyage with me, do you?—Ah hah!”

“I want to go on all your voyages with you. It would be much easier for you if you had someone to carry the butterfly-nets and note-books. Wouldn’t it now?”

For a long time the Doctor sat thinking, drumming on the desk with his fingers, while I waited, terribly impatiently, to see what he was going to say.

At last he shrugged his shoulders and stood up.

“Well, Stubbins,” said he, “I’ll come and talk it over with you and your parents next Thursday. And—well, we’ll see. We’ll see. Give your mother and father my compliments and thank them for their invitation, will you?”

Then I tore home like the wind to tell my mother that the Doctor had promised to come.