244 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



tutor, with the clever, kindly countenance, is 

 speaking cheerfully to his pupil, white as the ker- 

 chief round his throat, as he enters those ancient, 

 awful schools. So would I aid and abet my ama- 

 teur — so would I bring a stirrup-cup to my young 

 brave Dunois. Partant pour la Syrie — that is, 

 for the National Rose- Show — he wants informa- 

 tion as to boxes and tubes and moss, as to the 

 time of cutting, the method of arrangement ; and 

 he shall receive, in the succeeding chapter, the 

 best which I have to give. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



HOW TO SHOW THE ROSE. 



When I first exhibited Roses, the boxes se- 

 lected for the Queen of Flowers were not what 

 royal boxes ought to be. They were ordinary 

 and heterogeneous ; they were high and low, wide 

 and narrow, painted and plain. Disorder prevailed, 

 as at the Floralia of old ; and Bacchus again ap- 

 peared upon the scene in the cases which had 

 contained his wines, and which, reduced in altitude, 

 and filled with dingy moss, now held the glowing 

 Roses. These were kept alive, auspice ^sctdapiOy 

 in old physic-bottles filled with water, and plunged 



