COMMUTER'S WIFE 41 



about the place from the time he was a chubby 

 cheeked boy earning his first thri'penny bit by 

 washing flower-pots, served an apprenticeship of 

 experience, until in old age his trembling fingers can 

 hardly hold the sprays of apricots that he strives to 

 fasten against the wall which alone draws the heat 

 necessary to ripen them. Unconsciously he knows 

 the soil, he knows the spots that the sun warms 

 earliest in spring, he knows the borders that catch 

 the drip of winter rains, in what corners mildew 

 flourishes, and which is the chief resort of the perva- 

 sive earwig, and all the other capabilities and short- 

 comings of the ground intrusted to him, be it large 

 or small, as the physician knows the constitution of a 

 patient that he has tended from birth. But to have 

 this type of servitor, he must be inherited with the 

 garden, and this implies the law of entail. What 

 will you have ? My previous decision about gar- 

 deners in general, and our present incumbent espe- 

 cially, was confirmed by the dumping of that great 

 load of sand in the wrong place at a time when a 

 day's delay in planting the bulbs might have 

 brought frost to lock the ground until spring. You 

 may argue that a few days' delay is a small thing, 

 but that proves that you were not born to the soil. 

 I had said to Chris, the gardener, "Go over to the 



