"No, sir," the gardener said. "I admit it's not easy to persuade lemons to thrive through New England snow and gale; but thrive these do. Don't step any nearer them, sir, if you please. It is not healthy to be too intimate with these trees."
"I'm not allergic to citrus fruit," I said.
"I'll grant you that, sir, not knowing your personal idiosyncrasies," he said; "but step no closer, or I'll be forced to restrain you."
Seeing that the man was at least a little mad, I stood quite still and stared at the trees. The leaves, as I said, were rather pale, not at all the linoleum-green of orange-leaves; but the bushes looked quite healthy, and breathed off a thin and lovely fragrance. "Why do you consider your lemon-trees dangerous?" I asked.
"The hurt is in the fertilizer I use," the gardener said. "A little notion of my own, sir. About the roots of these lemon-trees, like baked bricks to warm one's feet in bed in winter, I've planted a few capsules of a stuff no man may touch and not scorch his fingers badly."
"Radioisotopes?" I asked.
"Yes, sir. When there is snow on the leaves, the roots of these trees bask in tropical soil and pump warm juice up to the winter branches," he said. "Now, sir, when I've stopped speaking, it will be just forty seconds before ten o'clock. If you've an appointment with the master, I dare not detain you. Walk up to the front door, open it, then go up the stairway. The master is in his study, the first room to your right at the top of the stairs." The gardener turned from me with an abrupt about-face, and marched over to a box hedge, to begin clipping at its green crewcut.
"Thank you," I said to his back. I retreated toward the door of the house, less apprehensive of radiation hazard from the lemons than of hedge-clipper hazard from the half-mad gardener. I should have to caution Dr. Ozoneff about this fellow.
I entered the front door as I'd been instructed to, and hurried up the stairway that bent down into the hall. The upper landing was lined with bookshelves bearing volumes in six languages, many of them translations of my host's scientific and fictive works. I rapped on the first door to my right and paused for reply. There was none. There was no sound of Ozoneff's insatiable typewriter. "Doctor Ozoneff?" I demanded, loudly enough to be heard anywhere in the house. There was still no answer. Worried lest the gardener might have become alarmed at my rapping and my shouting, and come up the stairs after me with those shears of his, I turned the knob and entered Doctor Axel Ozoneff's study.