CHAPTER II. 



CAUSES OF SUCCESS. 



From the lukewarm to the earnest, from failure to success. 

 Ten years ago, one cold slate-coloured morning' towards the 

 end of March ("hunch-weather," as I have heard it termed 

 in Lincolnshire, because, I suppose, a sense of starvation has 

 a tendency to set one's back up), I received a note from a 

 Nottingham mechanic, inviting me to assist in a judicial 

 capacity at an exhibition of Roses, given by Avorking men, 

 which was to be held on Easter Monday. Not having at 

 the time a Rose in my possession, although, to my shame 

 be it spoken, I had ample room and appliances, and know- 

 ing, moreover, that all the conservatories of the neighbour- 

 hood were in a like destitute and disgraceful condition, it 

 never occurred to me that the tiny glass houses, which I 

 had seen so often on the hills near Nottingham, could be 

 more honourably utilised or worthily occupied, and I threw 



