372 
New Zealand Ferns 
Passing the railway station at a little after five on 
Saturday evening I asked at the parcel office when the 
express would arrive. 
“Not for an hour or two/’ said the porter, civilly. 
I began to bewail my hard luck, to tell him how I had 
enlisted the aid of my friends in the Traffic Department 
to get a box of botanical specimens through from the 
King Country before they had time to wither. 
“That’s a funny thing, sir,” he said with sudden in- 
terest. “All the big bugs have been kicking up a dust 
about a box of ferns that came in by the goods half an 
hour ago.” 
“I wonder if that can be my parcel?” 
“What might be your name, sir?” 
“Dobbie.” 
“That’s it, right enough,” he said, disappearing into 
a dark corner of his office, and reappearing with the 
precious box. 
In five minutes I was in the tramcar with the case on 
my knee ; it looked like a commonplace brown-paper 
parcel from the back; there was nothing to indicate the 
treasures within, or to show that it had made two long 
journeys by train, and had been carried over breakneck 
spurs on horseback. On the front it bore many caution- 
ary instructions, including “VERY URGINT” in blue 
chalk. 
By this time my expectations were down to zero. 
What chance had a delicate fern of surviving a twenty- 
two hours’ journey on a jolting, clattering goods train, 
stopping at every station and shunting violently in and 
out of sidings? 
I would not open it at home, or allow even a corner of 
the paper to be lifted until I got it to Mr. Birch and he 
had all his apparatus ready. The string was then untied, 
the waterproof paper removed, the lid unscrewed. It 
was a dramatic moment. I looked round impressively 
before uncovering the ruin, as I thought, of Nature’s 
masterpiece. 
