I gasped—­and he went on.  “The commonest trees, I think, are palms and cedars.  Lots of the old houses were built of cedar, and I’ve heard of old cedar furniture to be picked up here and there, as some people buy old oak out of English farm-houses.  It is very durable and deliriously scented.  People used to make cedar bonfires when the small-pox was about, to keep away infection.  The gardens will grow anything, and plots of land are divided by oleander hedges of many colours.”

“Oh—­h!” ejaculated I, in long-drawn notes of admiration.  The school-master’s eyes twinkled.

“Not only,” continued he, “do very gaudy lobsters and quaint cray-fish and crabs with lanky legs dispute your attention on the shore with the shell-fish of the loveliest hues; there is no lack of remarkable creatures indoors.  Monstrous spiders, whose bite is very unpleasant, drop from the roof; tarantulas and scorpions get into your boots, and cockroaches, hideous to behold and disgusting to smell, invade every place from your bed to your store-cupboard.  If you possess anything, from food and clothing to books and boxes, the ants will find it and devour it, and if you possess a garden the mosquitoes will find you and devour you.”

“Oh—­h!” I exclaimed once more, but this time in a different tone.

Mr. Wood laughed heartily.  “Tropical loveliness has its drawbacks, Jack.  Perhaps some day when your clothes are moulded, and your brain feels mouldy too with damp heat, and you can neither work in the sun nor be at peace in the shade, you may wish you were sitting on a stool in your uncle’s office, undisturbed by venomous insects, and cool in a November fog.”

I laughed too, but I shook my head.

“No.  I shan’t mind the insects if I can get there.  Charlie, were those wonderful ants old Isaac said you’d been reading about, Bermuda ants?”

I did not catch Charlie’s muttered reply, and when I looked round I saw that his face was buried in the red cushions, and that he was (what Jem used to call) “in one of his tempers.”

I don’t exactly know how it was.  I don’t think Charlie was jealous or really cross, but he used to take fits of fancying he was in the way, and out of it all (from being a cripple), if we seemed to be very busy without him, especially about such things as planning adventures.  I knew what was the matter directly, but I’m afraid my consolation was rather clumsy.

“Don’t be cross, Charlie,” I said; “I thought you were listening too, and if it’s because you think you won’t be able to go, I don’t believe there’s really a bit more chance of my going, though my legs are all right.”

“Don’t bother about me,” said Charlie; “but I wish you’d put these numbers down, they’re in my way.”  And he turned pettishly over.

Before I could move, the school-master had taken the papers, and was standing over Charlie’s couch, with his right hand against the wall, at the level of his head, and his left arm hanging by his side; and I suppose it was his attitude which made me notice, before he began to speak, what a splendid figure he had, and how strong he looked.  He spoke in an odd, abrupt sort of voice, very different from the way he had been talking to me, but he looked down at Charlie so intensely, that I think he felt it through the cushions, and lifted his head.