"Like it, and yet exactly opposite to it! Jonas, that is impossible." "Why, yes," said Jonas, "the air gets down into the water, and you wonder how it can, when it is so much lighter than water. So water gets up into the air, and I wonder how it can, when it is so much heavier. So that the difficulty is just about the same." "No," said Rollo, "it is just about opposite." "Very well," said Jonas. Jonas never would dispute. Whenever any body said any thing that he did not think was correct, he would sometimes try to explain it; but then, if they persisted, he would generally say "Very well," and that would prevent all dispute. This is an excellent way to prevent disputes, or to end them when they are begun. While Jonas was digging slowly along through the neck of land, Rollo was rambling about among the bushes, and at length Jonas heard a sudden scream from him. Jonas looked up, and saw Rollo scrambling away from a little thicket, and then presently stopping to look back, apparently frightened. "What now, Rollo?" said Jonas. "Here is a great hornets' nest," said Rollo. Jonas laid down his spade, and went to where Rollo was. Rollo pointed to a little bush, where Jonas saw, hanging to a bough, not far from the ground, a small hornets' nest, about as big as a common snow-ball, and as round. Jonas walked slowly up towards it, watching it very attentively, as he advanced. "O Jonas! Jonas!" exclaimed Rollo, "you'd better be careful. Jonas! Jonas! you'll get stung." Jonas paid no attention to what Rollo was saying, but still kept moving slowly on towards the bush. When he got pretty near, he took his knife out of his pocket, and advancing one step more, he took hold of the end of the branch with one hand, and cut it off close to the tree, with the other. Rollo, in the mean time, had run backwards several steps to avoid the danger; still, however, keeping his eyes fixed upon Jonas. Jonas brought the nest out of the thicket. "Jonas!" said Rollo, in a tone of strong remonstrance, "you are crazy." "There are no hornets in it," said Jonas, quietly. He brought out the nest, and held it so that he and Rollo could see it. "The hornets have made it of brown paper," said he. "Brown paper," said Rollo. "Where do they get the brown paper?" "O, they make the brown paper too." "Ho!" said Rollo; "hornets can't make paper." "Think not?" said Jonas. Jonas was always careful not to contradict, even when he supposed that Rollo was mistaken. Rollo said he was _sure_ that hornets could not make paper. Then Jonas took off a little shred from the hornets' nest, and compared it with some brown paper which he had in his pocket; and he explained to Rollo that the hornets' nest was made of little fibres adhering to each other, just as the fibres of the paper did. "It is the same article," he said, "and made of the same materials; only they manufacture it in a different way. So I don't see why it is not proper to call it paper."