CAUSES OF SUCCESS. 1 5 



his cruel hug and grip — I went to Nottingham. 

 Again, as the hail beat upon the window of the 

 rail conveyance, and I sat dithering in the eastern 

 wind, which whistled its contempt of my rug 

 and foot-warmer, a horrible dread of imposition 

 vexed my unquiet soul. Nor were my silly sus- 

 picions expelled until my hansom from the 

 station stopped before the General Cathcart Inn, 

 and the landlord met me, with a smile on his face 

 and with a Senateur Vaisse in his coat, which 

 glowed amid the gloom like a red light on a mid- 

 night train, and (in my eyes, at any rate) made 

 summer of that dark ungenial day. Within his 

 portals I found a crowd of other exhibitors, some 

 with Roses in their coats Hke himself, and some with- 

 out, for the valid reason that they were there in their 

 shirt-sleeves, with no coats at all, just as you would 

 see them at their daily work, and some of them only 

 spared from it to cut and stage their flowers. These 

 welcomed me with out-stretched hands, and seemed 

 amused when, on their apologizing for their soiled 

 appearance, I assured them of my vivid aftec- 

 tion for all kinds of floricultural dirt, and that I 

 counted no man worthy of the name of gardener 

 whose skin was always white and clean. No : a 

 rich, glowing, gypsy brown is that one touch from 

 Nature's paint-brush, which makes the whole 



