“We haven’t got any here, Miss,” he replied mournfully.
“Any what?” asked Girlie.
“Any time, Miss. Haven’t you heard of people not having any time before?” said the Gardener.
“Yes,” said Girlie, “people that are in a hurry sometimes say they haven’t any time, but you don’t seem to be in a hurry about anything.”
“Oh, that isn’t the reason why we haven’t any time, Miss; it’s because we’ve lost ours. You’ve heard of people losing time, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Girlie, “I have.”
“Well, if you’ll sit down here, Miss,” said the Gardener, turning a large flowerpot upside down for her to sit on, “I’ll tell you how we lost ours. It was like this here,” he continued, after Girlie was seated. “We’d kept our time here for a long while, when one day the young man as they calls the King’s Minstrel comes along, and he says, says he, ‘You don’t keep your time properly,’ he says. ‘What do you mean?’ we says. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you don’t beat him, do you?’ ‘No,’ we says. ‘What do we want to beat him for?’ we says. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘you have to be very strict with your time,’ he says, ‘and you ought to beat him to make him go quicker,’ he says. Well, Miss, some of us, we didn’t hold with these new-fangled notions at all, but some of the others wanted to try it, so, after a bit, we took to beating our time regular, we did, and, for a little while, Miss, he did go quicker, so quick, in fact, that we couldn’t keep up to him at all, but were always behind him. You’ve heard of people being behind time, haven’t you, Miss?”
“Oh yes!” said Girlie, “go on, please.”
“Well, Miss, after a bit our time he began to go slower again, and by-and-by he slowly passed away altogether.” The Gardener paused and looked at Girlie as though he expected her to say something.
“Where did he go to?” she asked.