AN ORCHID SALE. 27 
the scene when Masdevallia Tovarensis first 
covered the stages of an auction-room. Its 
dainty white flowers had been known for several 
years. A resident in the German colony at 
Tovar, New Granada, sent one plant to a friend 
at Manchester, by whom it was divided. Each 
fragment brought a great sum, and the purchasers 
repeated this operation as fast as their morsels 
grew. Thus a conventional price was established 
—one guinea per leaf. Importers were few in 
those days, and the number of Tovars in South 
America bewildered them. At length Messrs. 
Sander got on the track, and commissioned Mr. 
Arnold to solve the problem. Arnold was a man 
of great energy and warm temper. Legend 
reports that he threw up the undertaking once 
because a gun offered him was second-hand ; his 
prudence was vindicated afterwards by the mis- 
fortune of aconfréere, poor Berggren, whose second- 
hand gun, presented by a Belgian employer, 
burst at a critical moment and crippled him for 
life. At the very moment of starting, Arnold had 
trouble with the railway officials. He was taking 
a quantity of Sphagnum moss in which to wrap 
the precious things, and they refused to Ict him 
carry it by passenger train. The station-master at 
Waterloo had never felt the atmosphere so warm, 
