Coristine’s leave did not come till the following Tuesday, so that Friday, Saturday and Monday—­or parts of them, at least—­could be devoted to the work of preparation.  Good, strong, but not too heavy, tweed walking suits were ordered, and a couple of elegant flannel shirts that would not show the dirt were laid in; a pair of stout, easy boots was picked out, and a comfortable felt hat, with brim enough to keep off the sun.  Then the lawyer bought his cardboard and his patent cloth and straps, and spent Saturday evening with his friend and a sharp penknife, bringing the knapsacks into shape.  The scientists made a mistake in producing black and shiny articles, well calculated to attract the heat.  White canvas would have been far better.  But Wilkinson had taken his model from the military, hence it had to be black.  The folded ends of the patent cloth, which looked like leather, were next to the wearer’s back, so that what was visible to the general public was a very respectable looking flat surface, fastened round the shoulders with becoming straps, equally dark in hue.  “Sure, Farquhar, it’s pack-men the ignorant hayseeds will be taking us for,” said Coristine, when the prospective pedestrians had strapped on their shiny baggage holders.  “I do not agree with you there,” replied the schoolmaster; “Oxford and Cambridgemen, and the best litterateurs of England, do Wales and Cornwall, the Lakes and the Trossachs, to say nothing of Europe, dressed just as we are.”  “All right, old man, but I’m thinking I’ll add a bandanna handkerchief and a blackthorn.  They’ll come in handy to carry the fossils over your shoulder.  There now, I’ve forgot the printers’ paper and the strap flower press for my specimens.  True, there’s Monday for that; but I’m afraid I’ll have to shave the boards of the flower press down, or it’ll be a sorry burden for a poor, tired botanist.  Good night to you, my bouchal boy, and it’s a pack you might throw into a corner of your sack.”  “Cards!” replied Wilkinson; “no sir, but my pocket chess box will be at your service.”  “Chess be hanged,” said the lawyer; “but, see here, are they checkers when you turn them upside down?  If they are, it’s I’m your man.”

On Tuesday morning, about eight o’clock, there appeared at the Brock Street Station of the Northern Railway, two well-dressed men with shiny knapsacks on their shoulders.  They had no blackthorns, for Wilkinson had said it would be much more romantic to cut their own sticks in the bush, to which Coristine had replied that, if the bush was as full of mosquitos as one he had known, he would cut his stick fast enough.  They were the astonishment, rather than the admiration, of all beholders, who regarded them as agents, and characterized the way in which they carried their samples as the latest thing from the States.  For a commencement, this was humiliating, so that the jaunty lawyer twisted his moustache fiercely, and felt inclined to quarrel with the self-possessed,