THE WHITE ROCKERY 75 



with him and encourage him. But encouragement 

 was the last thing that gardener needed. He ap- 

 peared to me to be a most flamboyant and boastful 

 person. His experience was clearly limited ; his 

 knowledge almost elementary. Instead of en- 

 couraging him, I gently indicated various unsatis- 

 factory matters, and his brow grew clouded. He 

 was unaccustomed to anything but admiration, and 

 he desired nothing else. I said, " It's so important 

 for us to read the text-books. There's nothing like 

 steady reading and study to help practice. What 

 works have you got ? " 



" None," he said. " I don't want no books. It's 

 all here ! " 



So saying, he tapped his great, stupid head. 



Now a man of that mean stamp freezes me in- 

 stantly. I ceased to care for his garden. I refused 

 to look at some obvious geraniums which he prided 

 himself upon, turned coldly from him, and shuddered 

 at a horrible bed of bad mixed verbenas. It is all 

 very well to possess the whole art and practice of 

 gardening in our heads ; but we must arrange out- 

 lets. That gardener's duty was to let his mass of 

 information exude like balm upon the garden of his 

 master. Instead of which there was no sign of it any- 

 where. He kept it corked up and screwed in. Had 

 he even suffered so much to escape as might have 

 served to fill a " Beginner's Guide," one had forgiven 

 him. A time will come when that miserable sham 

 will be detected denying his immense knowledge to 

 turnips, parsnips, or some radical matter of that 



