TALPA LOQUITUR. 149 



the very thing which I at such time back suffered a 

 small martyrdom in the vain endeavour to urge upon 

 them. 



I know not whether other ' employers of labour ' 

 have felt this sort of paulo post futurum experience 

 as I have done. But I suspect so ; for every man is 

 (and it is comforting to think so) only the unit of a 

 class. It is difficult to study for years the character 

 of a soil, without learning something of the character 

 of those employed upon, aye and even of those who 

 visit, it. And this has been my especial grievance, 

 and one which Time, the ' smooth-handed god ' has 

 increased, not lightened. People who derided my 

 'improvements/ laughed at my 'deep' drains, bewept 

 my grubbed-up ash-stumps, mourned over my obli- 

 terated hedgerows, turned up noses at my Tank, 

 listened with mock-gravity to my 'mysterious' re- 

 marks about the ' economy of warmth ' as cheaper 

 than the 'equivalent in food/ and a great many 

 other things that it would take an inventory to tell, 

 do now come and preach to me such admirable 

 sermons on my own poor old antiquated texts, that I 

 should really begin, as other worthies have done be- 

 fore me, to doubt my own identity, but for a little 

 store laid by in a corner, of the capital I began with, 



