“Bulbs,” said he.
“Joe,” said the patient, “you’re a man of such few words that I hardly like to ask you to squander any on an explanation. Still circumstances have dulled my faculties.”
“I spekilated in ’em,” said Joe, “and I were sold.”
“I see, sold up. A man of courage would have turned and taken Fortune by the neck.”
“Would he? It ain’t my way. You may thumb me in like a March onion for to come up in June, but if the ground don’t soot me I jumps out. Gardening was my ban and I tuk to the road. What’s the odds? Here be the Lake o’ Wine a-blossoming like a toolip at the end of it.”
“But is it, Joe?”
“Ain’t it, now? I speaks free, me and Rudland being left alone on guard.”
“Why, where are the others?”
The ex-gardener gave a ponderous wink.
“Two ’ll suffice,” he said, “to keep this ’ere maggot from eatin’ his way out of the apple.”