GARDEN EROLOGY. 159 



I had parted from some gardeners- visitors they came 

 to me and told me : Louis, why do you not treat your 

 visitors with more cordiality ? It was the custom then 

 in the country, at that time, to offer dinner to any one 

 (in my category) who came, and always some distance 

 from their homes. You treat them very unceremoni- 

 ously ; you always give them ordinary wine ; why do 

 you not give them some sparkling champagne ? I do 

 not for many reasons. Firstly, I do not particularly 

 care for most of them, who, in the occasion, would call 

 me heretic, Hood drinker, etc. As for the other ones, 

 if I should do it, they would tell the other ones the 

 cold-shouldered, who would call me an aristocrat, with 

 accessory epithets, so in order not to deviate from my 

 principles of equality I treated them all alike : " Equal- 

 ity before my law" Not the government's laws that 

 deny me the right of voting because I paid no taxes, 

 etc., and I work for a salary ! Does anybody work 

 for or without no salary \ Yes, I did work for salary, 

 but many get salary and do not work at all ! ! How 



do you call that law? 1 understood at that time, 



that the lest country in the world for high salary and 

 often nothing to do was old England, but I suppose 

 there are good many other nations where they have 

 such workers where there is nothing to do, and good 

 pay 1 ! However, I did not care much for any of them, 

 not that I had any dislike for them, but their ideas, 



