NO. IV.—THE GRAND OLD (JOBBING) GARDENER.
SCENE—the Garden of a modest Suburban Villa. Present, Simple Citizen, with budding horticultural ambitions, and Jobbing Gardener, "highly recommended" for skill and low charges. The latter is a grizzled personage, very bowed as to back, and baggy as to breeches, but in his manner combining oracular "knowingness" and deferential plausibility in a remarkable degree.
Simple Citizen. You see SMUGGINS, things are a little bit in the rough here, at present.
Grand Old Gardener. Ah, you may well say that, Sir! Bin allowed to run to rack and ruin, this here pooty bit o' garding has. Want a lot o' clearing, scurryfunging, and topping and lopping, afore it'll look anythink like. But it's got the making of a puffeck parrydise in it, a puffeck parrydise it has—with my adwice.
S.C. Glad to hear you say so, SMUGGINS. Now what I propose is—
G.O.G. (laying a horny hand on S.C.'s coat-sleeve). If you'll ascuse me, Sir, I'll jest give yer my ideas. It'll save time. (Lays down artfully the lines of a plan involving radical alteration of paths, and lawns, and beds, shifting of shrubs, cutting down of trees, rooting up of trailers, and what he calls "toppin' an' loppin'" to a tremendous extent.) Then, Sir, you'll 'ave a bit o' garding as'll be the pride o' yer eye, and a tidy bit o' profit into the bargain, or I don't know my bizness. An' I oughter too, seeing as I wos 'ed gardener to the Dook of FITZ-FUZZ for close on twenty year, afore the rheumaticks took me like wot you see. Hu-a-a-h!!!
S.C. Yes; but, SMUGGINS, all these alterations will run into time and—expense, I'm afraid.
G.O.G. (confidentially). You leave that to me, Sir! The fust expense'll be the biggest, and a saving in the long run, take my word. And then you will 'ave a garding, you will, one as that 'ere muddled up bit o' greenery nex door won't be a patch on it, for all he's so proud of it.(Gets Simple Citizen into his clutches, and works him to his will.)
SCENE II.—The Same, six months later in the Season.
S.C. (returning from a fortnight's absence). What, SMUGGINS, still at it? And—eh—by Jove, what have you been up to? Why I hardly know the place again!
G.O.G. (complacently). I should 'ope not, Sir It is a bit different from when you last saw it, I flatter myself. Fact it is a garding, now. Then it wos a wildernidge!
S.C. Yes, but SMUGGINS, hang it all, you've cut almost every bit of greenery away!
G.O.G. (contemptuously). Greenery!!! And who wants greenery? Greenery ain't gardening, greenery ain't not by chorks. Any fool, even that cove nex door, can grow greenery!
S.C. Yes, but SMUGGINS, I don't like my limes to look like gouty posts, my branchy elms to show as bare as broom-sticks, and my fruit-trees to be trimmed into timber-screens!
G.O.G. (persuasively). No, Sir, cert'ny not. Fact is they'd bin let grow wild so long that cutting on 'em freely back wos the only way to save 'em. Jest wait till next year, Sir, and you'll see.
S.C. (doubtfully). Humph! Looks beastly now, anyhow. And you've altered all the paths, and nearly all the beds. I didn't tell you—
G.O.G. (emphatically). No, Sir, you didn't. You give me cart blarnch, you did, and I've done my level best. The Dook 'ad the same idees at first, but when he comes to know me, he says, says he, SMUGGINS, you're always right, he says. If you wos to run a reaping-machine through my horchids, or a traction-engine over my turf, I should know as you wos a-doing of the right thing—in the long run! Oh, you leave it to me, Sir, and you won't repent it. And—ahem—here's my little haccount, Sir,—hup to date.
[Presents dirty piece of blue paper, giving scanty details, and a spanking total. Simple Citizen pays, and tries to look pleasant.
SCENE III.—The Same, six months later. Present, Simple Citizen, and a Sympathetic Friend.
Sympathetic Friend. Well, well, it does look a waste, APPLEYARD.
Simple Citizen (purple). A waste! I should think it did. indeed! And to think of the pretty, green, bowery place it was when I took it! Unprofitable, perhaps, but pleasant. Now it is neither pleasant nor profitable.
S.F. And all through that rascally ravaging SMUGGINS?
S.C. (furiously). The scoundrel!—the sleek, insinuating, slaughtering scoundrel! He tore up my paths, he altered my beds, he mutilated my lawns, he stripped my trailers, he hacked my trees into bare hideousness, all to make work and money for himself and his partner in iniquity, that nefarious "florist" friend of his. I was a greenhorn, MUMPSON, a juggins, and I let them fool me to the top of my bent. He cut up the shrubbery into those horrible flat beds, in order that I might "grow my hown wegerbles," as he phrased it. He got money from me for the best and most expensive "ashleaf kidneys" and "Prooshian Blues," then planted cheap refuse from a small greengrocer's. My "ashleaf kidneys" turned out waxy marbles; my Prooshian Blues refused to pod; I spent—or rather he received—pounds upon my vinery and cucumber frames. My grape-bunches went mouldy, and I never got a cucumber more than six inches long. His "friend, the florist," did, no doubt. He stole my shrubs overnight, and sold 'em back to me next morning. He bled my maidservants for "beer and 'baccy." In fact, it was the same all round; he had, in every way, ruined my garden, run me up exorbitant bills, and then, when the day of detection was imminent—disappeared. If ever I catch sight of that mulberry nose of his, I shall be tempted to—
S.F. (soothingly). Ah, yes, just so. But let's hope that you'll never come across this particular Grand Old Gardener—or his like—again. (Waggishly.) By Jove, APPLEYARD, no wonder the world went wrong, seeing that "the first man" was—a Gardener!!!
LEARNED BY ART.—"Beasts in Bond Street!" "Sheep in the Salon!" Messrs. DOWDESWELLS have taken the wind out of the sails of the Agricultural Hall, and Mr. DENOVAN ADAM has given us the opportunity of seeing a superb collection of Scottish Highland Cattle. Mountain, meadow, moss and moor have all been laid under contribution. The result is we can have the chance of studying these hornymental animals without being tossed, and staring at them without being gored. In the same gallery may be seen a series of pastels of Hampstead Heath, by Mr. HENRY MUHRMAN—a merman ought to be a sea-painter by rights, but no matter! The poet has told us that, "'Amsted am the place to ruralise on a summer's day!" The artist convinces us it is the place to "pastelise," and he seems to have pastelised to the tune of forty pictures very successfully.
