Not the least troublesome part of our enlarged kit was the collection of gay-plumaged birds.  Their preservation was by no means complete, and I continued it at sea.  But between climate and creatures, the destructiveness of the tropics is distracting to the collector, and one or two of my finest specimens fell into heaps of mangled feathers, dust, and hideous larvae under my eyes.  It was Dennis O’Moore’s collection.  He and his engineer friend were both good shots, and they had made an expedition on purpose to get these birds for Alister.  There were some most splendid specimens, and the grandest of all, to my thinking, was a Roseate Spoonbill, a wading, fish-catching bird of all shades of rose, from pale pink to crimson.  Even his long horny legs were red.  But he was not a pleasant subject for my part of the work.  He smelt like the Water-Lily at her worst, before we got rid of the fish cargo.

Knowing that he had got them for Alister, I was rather surprised one day when Dennis began picking out some of the rarest birds and put them aside.  It was so unlike him to keep things for himself.  But as he turned over the specimens, he began to ask me about Cripple Charlie, whose letter he had read.  Meanwhile he kept selecting specimens, and then, returning them to the main body again, “Ah, we mustn’t be robbing Alister, or he’ll never die Provost of Aberdeen.”  In the end he had gathered a very choice and gorgeous little lot, and then I discovered their destination.  “We’ll get them set up when we get home,” he said; “I hope Charlie ’ll like ’em.  They’ll put the old puffin’s nose out of joint, anyway, for as big as it is!”

Our ship was a steamship, a well-found vessel, and we made a good passage.  The first mate was an educated man, and fond of science.  He kept a meteorological log, and the pleasantest work we ever did was in helping him to take observations.  We became very much bitten with the subject, and I bought three pickle-bottles from the cook, and filled them with gulf-weed and other curiosities for Charlie, and stowed these away with the birds.

Dennis found another letter from his father awaiting him at the Halifax post-office.  The squire had discovered his blunder, and sent the money, and the way in which Dennis immediately began to plan purchases of all sorts, from a birch-bark canoe to a bearskin rug, gave me a clue to the fortunes of the O’Moores.  I do not think he would have had enough left to pay his passage if we had been delayed for long.  But our old ship was expected any hour, and when she came in we made our way to her at once, and the upshot of it all was, that Dennis and I shipped in her for the return voyage as passengers, and Alister as a seaman.