90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 



prize at all, but have him disqualified ! He would prob- 

 ably have done it but he durst not. You understand 

 the reason ? that gentleman Borrower of plants as I 

 have said, was a liberal man and as I understood very wil- 

 ling to oblige his friends, and our chairman was deeply 

 under obligations to him. Hence the award, jump- 

 ing from the frying pan into the fire. But it seemed 

 that they had not discovered the whole series of tricks 

 used at that exhibition. In the lot of six variegated 

 or foliage plants exhibited against me there were two 

 that came from the same place at the Ancechtochilus ! 

 The owner afterward confessed to me that it was a 

 mean trick and would never do it again. In the 

 morning, after all our plants were arranged on the 

 table, I gave a look over the whole exhibit, and I 

 thought I knew some of the plants as not belonging to 

 the man who had them exhibited, but of course it 

 never occurred to me that either of those two men 

 would resort to such mean tricks, for both men ap- 

 peared to me as gentlemen, one, at least, as any, 

 farther I can not tell, both men were intimate friends f 

 as it is generally understood, but the Lender was a 

 subaltern to the Borrower and you know ! " Borrow- 

 ing dulls the edge of husbandry " and also the edge of 

 friendship in the occasion ! ! 



Both of those friends had shown me a great deal of 



