I have made much worse mistakes myself. On a hot summer day at Ferrara I went into a café to see if I could get an ice. Instead of asking the man if he had got _Gelati_, which are ices, I asked if he had got _Geloni_, which are chilblains. Arriving quite exhausted at an inn in the Tyrol, I said I wanted the _Abendmahl_ at once. The word means Supper, just like _Abendessen_, but is now used only of the Sacrament. In all probability I shall never again say Thank-you to a German; but I find that, if I do, I must say Donkey’s-hair. I fancied it was Danke-sehr, but am corrected by a girl from a superior sort of school near here. A man built a bungalow not far from here, and chose to call it Chez-nous; but it is known as Chestnuts. Chars-à-banc are known as Cherubim. On venturing to hint that this was a mistake, I got a crushing reply:--“Why, us read of the Lord a-ridin’ on the wings of the Cherubim, and they folk be a-ridin’ on their seats.” A quantity of plants arrived here while I was away, and among them were some Kalmias and Andromedas. On my [Illustration: THE HALL HOUSE (_p. 50_)] return I asked where they had all been put; and I was told that some of them were in the greenhouse, others were in various parts of the garden, and the Camels and Dromedaries were out in the orchards. An old gardener once gave me his opinion that a laundry was better than a garden, “as garments had not got such mazin’ names as plants.” And the maze grows more intricate, when Berberis Darwinii is Barbarous Darwin, and Nicotiana is Nicodemus, and Irises are Irish, and they English Irish be braver than they Spanish Irish. There was an old lady here who always said:--“If there be a flower that I do like, it be a Pertunium.” It was neither a petunia nor a geranium; but I never found out exactly what it was. Botanists might adopt the name, when they want one for a novelty, for it is better than most of theirs. It may be convenient to give things Greek or Latin names, and it certainly sounds better to say Archæopteryx and Deinotherium than Old Bird and Awful Beast. But it is absurd to take the ancient name for one thing, and give it to another; yet that is what Linnæus and his followers have very often done. Besides their botanical names, many things have trade names now. There is a plant here of the sort that is described at Kew as Rhododendrum Ponticum Cheiranthifolium. But, when I wanted to get another like it, I found the nurseryman did not know it by that name. He called it Jeremiah J. Colman. Even in plain English there are pitfalls. At a hotel in Penzance I found the coffee-room quite full, when I came in to breakfast, and I asked the head-waiter if he couldn’t find me a place. He answered:--“Very sorry, sir, only whiting and soles to-day.” * * * * *