THE StX OF SPADES. 46 



in admiring those charming little alpine plants 

 nestling in the crevices and crannies of the rockwork, 

 and may taste the alpine strawberries if you please, 

 though I warn you that this Arbutus is " Unedo," and 

 that you will not desire to repeat the experiment ; 

 and, in brief, you will find, wherever you go, some 

 pleasant proof of a refined taste and an untiring 

 industry. 



I must mention just one more instance, perhaps 

 the most decided of his improvements the trans- 

 formation which he achieved in " the stove." It was 

 an awful place, that stove, in the reign of King 

 Woodhead ; and Mr. Chiswick pretended, when in 

 merry mood, that on his first visit, " a mealy bug, 

 of gigantic stature and ferocious dimensions, had 

 lashed out at him like a horse." Certainly there was 

 more to interest the entomologist than the florist in 

 this remarkable collection. I suppose that the 

 Orchids must have flowered at night, for I never saw 

 them emerge by day from their residences of rotten 

 wood and moss, where they seemed to exercise un- 

 bounded hospitality, and to keep open house for the 

 lower orders of vermin. There were creepers, which 

 declined to creep ; sticks trained to enormous globes, 

 but showing no inclination to start upon their travels 

 round them ; and plants, on the other hand, which 

 grew like the fairy's bean-stalk Allamandas, for 

 instance, stretching their arms all over the place, but 

 of flowers " divil a taste ; " there were tall thorny 

 Euphorbias about as full of bloom as a hedgehog; 

 there were Begonias with great cracks in their giant 

 " ears," and places which looked as though bitten out 



