With which short homily, I hand the book over to you by way of some very slight return for all that you have done for me.
CHAPTER I.
Eight o’Clock in the Morning
William, the gardener at Layton Court, was a man of melancholy deliberation.
It did not pay, William held, to rush things; especially the important things of life, such as the removal of greenfly from roses. Before action was taken, the matter should be studied, carefully and unhappily, from every possible point of view, particularly the worst.
On this summer’s morning William had been gazing despondently at the roses for just over three quarters of an hour. Pretty soon now he would feel himself sufficiently fortified to begin operations on them.
“Do you always count the greenfly before you slaughter them, friend William?” asked a sudden voice behind him.
William, who had been bending forward to peer gloomily into the greenfly-blown intricacies of a Caroline Testout, slewed hastily about. He hated being accosted at the best of times, but there was a spontaneous heartiness about this voice which grated intolerably on all his finer feelings. The added fact that the act of slewing hastily about had brought a portion of his person into sharp and painful contact with another rose bush did not tend to make life any more cheerful for William at that moment.
“Weren’t a-countin’ em,” he observed curtly; and added naughtily under his breath, “Drat that there Mr. Sheringham!”
“Oh! I thought you must be totting up the bag in advance,” remarked the newcomer gravely from behind an enormous pipe. “What’s your record bag of greenfly, William? Runs into thousands of brace, I suppose. Well, no doubt it’s an interesting enough sport for people of quiet tastes. Like stamp-collecting. You ever collect stamps, William?”
“Noa,” said William, gazing sombrely at a worm. William was not one of your chatty conversationalists.