AT A RObE-SirlOW. 279 



duplicates" upon his exhibition-card. Keen must 

 have been the shaft which he had himself feathered 

 from that borrowed plume, but keener far to feel 

 (for it was a fact patent to all), that if he had not 

 made the addition, he must have won the premier 

 prize. 



Another failure of empirical knavery, another 

 slip between the cup of silver and the lip of 

 stratagem, occurs to my recollection. It was my 

 good fortune to win a prize goblet, annually given 

 for Roses at one of our midland shows, so fre- 

 quently, that my success became monotonously 

 irksome to the competitors generally, but specially 

 to one of these covetous exhibitors who grow 

 Roses only for gain. He induced, as it afterwards 

 transpired, two other growers of the Rose to com.- 

 bine with him in an attempt '*to beat the parson;" 

 and so sure was this clique of success, that they 

 brought a couple of bottles of wine to the show, 

 to be quaffed from the cup, which I won easily. 

 In the afternoon I happened to come upon the 

 conspirators drinking their port in a quiet corner 

 of the grounds, and one of them not only invited 

 me to partake, but, as from a sudden impulse, and as 

 though the truth must come out with the wine, to 

 my intense amusement, and to the still more in- 

 tense amazement of his friends, revealed all the 



