"Not that I know of, sir. I didn't look."
Of course I deserved it; but it is the things which one deserves that are so annoying. I determined not to be done, so the next morning before Moxon's arrival, I slipped on a dressing-gown and hurried softly downstairs. It was just as I expected. There was Moxon, bending over one of the window-boxes and, with a gentle finger, raking away the mould in places to see if he could find any more crocuses shooting up their tender green.
"Put that mould back, Moxon," I said severely. At the unexpected sound of my voice, I thought the poor man would have fallen out of the window into the area below. "What are you doing?" I added.
"Just making it a little tidy, sir. That was all."
I let it go at that. I knew he would never transgress in such a fashion again. I believe, moreover, that it is always best to leave a shred of dignity with those whom you would admonish. It is by that single shred they still cling to you. Deprive them of it and the only dignity left them is to go out of your sight altogether.
Thus it was, with my snowdrops, my crocuses and my hyacinths that I fought my battle with depression through those last months of winter, till I should see the first hopeful light of spring. Twice every week also, I rose betimes in the morning and with Dandy was out to Covent Garden before the market closed at nine. It was Moxon who first informed me that I could get flowers cheaper that way. Accordingly when I had proved the truth of it, I filled my rooms with them.
"How did you happen to know about this?" I asked him when one fine morning I had returned with an armful of daffodils.
"I go there sometimes myself, sir," he replied; "my mother's a fancy for those sort of things, and though I don't 'old with petting women up with flowers, I send them to her occasionally because she's an invalid."
"It's bound to spoil a woman if you send her flowers?" I said solemnly.
"Bound to," he agreed.