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had not gone very far before one of these clumps, a 

 particularly large one, right on the bank of the stream, 

 and consequently at some distance, had a " funny " look, 

 differentiating it from the rest, a sort of crispness, slender- 

 ness, and at that distance an indefiniteness of the tips 

 which marked it out clearly from its neighbours. Forgetting 

 the day or my implied pledge, my feet ran away with my 

 head and the rest of me, including my eyes, and the next 

 moment I found myself standing entranced by the side t)f 

 an immense bush of a most beautifully tasselled and new 

 form of the species, which actually took my breath away 

 with surprise and delight. Gradually recovering conscious- 

 ness as it were of the practical world, the next question 

 was, "What is to be done?" My trowel, even if I had 

 had it, was obviously useless to grapple with a monster 

 like this, besides the Sabbatorial restriction resumed its 

 sway, and so carefully making sure of the locality of the 

 prize I picked a frond or two, put them into my hat and 

 returned to the cottage. With a sort of a deprecatory 

 cringe I refrained from speech and simply laid the fronds 

 on the table. My wife's first impression was that I had 

 brought some fronds from home with a view to a trap for 

 her, but examining them, their freshness and unfamiliarity 

 gradually brought it home to her that her poor husband 

 himself had been the victim of a satanic trap in the shape 

 of a golden bait of this kind temptingly placed in his way 

 on the day of days. Like a good Christian soul, however, 

 she forgave poor erring me, and even consented after 

 dinner to go and try and refind the prize under my guidance 

 as to its vicinity, which she successfully did, and thus 

 condoned everything. This, however, did not settle the 

 question of how to transport this ponderous mass of 

 vegetation to London as intact as might be. To effect 

 this, on the next morning I engaged a labouring man to go 

 with me with fork and spade to remove it, but found even 

 these inadequate until, happily, a quarryman with a horse 



