GARDENS AND GARDENERS. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



I ONCE read an amusing story of an unfortunate 

 knight who was taken prisoner by a sultan in the 

 East, and to save his life turned gardener. He 

 became in fact, to alter the title of Moliere's play, a 

 "Jardinier malgre lui." The Pacha required a 

 gardener, and he would have no bungling native ; a 

 European must be found. The servant of the knight 

 sees a chance of saving his master's life, so, fibbing 

 nobly, he declares him to be an accomplished horticul- 

 turist. The prisoner is spared on the condition that 

 he lays out a European garden. 



What shall the soldier do ? He is profoundly 

 ignorant of plants ; he cannot tell a privet from a 

 pine tree. Now there is no profession (unless it be 

 the scholastic) in which a man can succeed without 

 knowing anything whatever. A gardener is expected 

 to understand something about his business. How- 

 ever, this prisoner took heart : he summoned to his 

 aid those powerful genii " Aplomb " and " Toupet " ; 

 he set his fifty labourers to work, and made a 

 desperate effort to look as if he had some idea what 

 he meant to do. It is not easy to look as if you 

 knew all about a thing that is inscrutable. Parsons 

 manage it, and doctors ; sometimes a schoolmaster 

 partially succeeds. 



