“Isobel,” I said, “if you will try to explain what you mean—”
“I mean flats,” she said dolefully. “I always lived in a flat, John, and there was always a family above and a family below, and it frightens me to think I am in a house where there is no family above me, and not even a janitor's family below me. It makes me feel naked, or suspended in air, or as if there was no ground under my feet. It makes me gasp!”
“That is nonsense!” I said. “That is the beauty of having a house. We have it all to ourselves. Now, in a flat—”
“We had our flat all to ourselves, John,” she reminded me; “but a flat isn't so unbounded as a house. Just think; there is nothing between us and the top of the sky! Not a single family! It makes me nervous. And there is nothing beneath us!”
“Now, my dear,” I said soothingly, “China is beneath us, and no doubt a very respectable family is keeping house directly below.”
Isobel sighed contentedly.
“I am so glad you thought of that!” she cried. “Now, when I feel lonely, I can imagine I feel the house jar as the Chinese family move their piano, or I can imagine that I hear their phonograph.”
“Very good,” I said; “and if you can imagine all that, why cannot you imagine a family overhead, too? The whole attic is there. Very well; I give up the entire attic to your imagination.”
Then I kissed her and went into the back garden. My opinion is that the man that laid out that back garden was over-sanguine. I am passionately fond of gardening, and believe in back gardens; but at the present price of seed and the present hardness of hoe handles, I think that back garden is too large. This is not a mere flash opinion, either; it is a matter of study. The first day I stuck spade into that garden I had given little thought to its size, but by the time I had spaded all day I began to have a pretty well-defined opinion of gardens and how large they should be, and by the end of the third day of spading I believe I may say I was well equipped to testify as an expert on garden sizes. That was the day the blisters on my hands became raw.