92 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. Ill 



member of the family room to get away by himself 

 or herself if so disposed. Moreover, the gain in space 

 made it more possible to see something of friends or 

 put up a guest, than in the small and crowded house 

 in Abbey Place. 



A small garden lay in front of the house ; a con- 

 siderably larger garden behind, wherein the chief 

 ornament was then a large apple-tree, that never 

 failed to spread a cloud of blossom for my father's 

 birthday, the 4th of May. 



Over the way, too, for many years we were faced 

 by a long garden full of blossoming pear-trees in 

 which thrushes and blackbirds sang and nested, 

 belonging to a desolate house in the Abbey Road, 

 which was tenanted by a solitary old man, supposed 

 to be a male prototype of Miss Havisham in Great 

 Expectations. 



The move was accompanied by a unique and un- 

 pleasant experience. A knavish fellow, living in a 

 cottage close to the foot of the garden, sought to 

 blackmail the newcomer, under threat of legal pro- 

 ceedings, alleging that a catchment well for surface 

 drainage had made his basement damp. Unfortun- 

 ately for his case, it could be shown that the pipes 

 had not yet been connected with the well, and when 

 he carried out his threat, he gained nothing from his 

 suit in Chancery and his subsequent appeal, except 

 some stinging remarks from Vice-Chancellor Malins. 



I am afraid the brute is impecunious (wrote my father 

 after the first suit failed), and that I shall get nothing 



