82 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



have educed a few potatoes even from the depraved mate- 

 rial before us." But he didn't seem to see it. 



Wherefore I would ask to narrate, in antithesis, and to 

 take away, as it were, a nauseous flavour — like the fig 

 which followed the castor-oil of our youth — another small 

 incident. The " navvy " is not commonly a man of floral 

 proclivities, but I met with a grand exception a few years 

 ago in the leader of a gang then working upon one of our 

 midland lines. When the work was done, and the band 

 dispersed, he applied for and obtained a gatehouse on the 

 rail, and to that tenement was attached the meanest 

 apology for a garden which I ever saw in my life. Know- 

 ing his love of flowers, I condoled with him at the beginning 

 of his tenancy; but he only responded with a significant 

 grunt, and a look at the garden, as though it were a foot- 

 ball and he was going to kick it over the railway. It 

 seemed to me a gravel-bed, and nothing more. Twelve 

 months after I came near the place again — was it a mirage 

 which I saw on the sandy desert t There were vegetables, 

 fruit-bushes, and fruit-trees, all in vigorous health ; there 

 were flowers, and the flower-queen in her beauty. " Why, 

 Will," I exclaimed, "what have you done to the gravel- 

 bed } " " Lor' bless yer," he replied, grinning, " I hadn't 



