FIRST FIGHT IN THE WABS OF THE ROSES. 213 



stray feverishly indoors and out. Now in my garden, 

 gazing reproachfully at those roses which were not 

 in sufficient bloom, as though they had done it to 

 spite me, and trying to induce a premature develop- 

 ment, until I cracked their petals and spoiled them ; 

 and now, under cover, filling my zinc tubes, picking 

 out the best moss for my boxes, and writing correct 

 cards of the names and species of the roses which 

 were to race for the cup. All was in readiness when, 

 as the daylight fell, I took a last lingering survey of 

 my pets. There was a Baronne Prevost, I remember, 

 which I rather flattered myself would make Jones 

 gasp ; a Countess Mole of such ample proportions as 

 would have won her praise in Brobdignag ; and a 

 grand specimen of Las Casas, which we then accounted 

 to be a noble rose, not criticizing in those days so 

 keenly as in these, an " eye " about the size of a 

 shilling ! With blooms of this calibre, tastefully dis- 

 posed, I fully hoped to bring disgrace on Jones ; and 

 I saw him that night in my broken slumbers, bringing 

 out of his usual hamper twenty-four small and sullied 

 roses, sticking them, without any regard to size or 

 colour, in the ginger-beer bottles, to which I have 

 previously referred, and of course miserably defeated. 

 There was no need next morning for the small bits 

 of gravel, which my faithful gardener threw up to my 

 bedroom window, for I was nearly dressed when the 

 summons came, and in my garden at four a.m. My 

 reader, if you have never seen roses when, refreshed 

 by those welcome dews which flow " from the cool 

 cisterns of the midnight air," they awake in the soft 

 splendour of the rising sun, you have yet to see them 



