“About cabbages, sir?� inquired the other respectfully.
But the Colonel did not appear to pursue the topic, for he was gazing in sudden abstraction at another object in the vegetable plots in front of him. The Colonel’s garden, like the Colonel’s house, hat, coat and demeanour, was well-appointed in an unobtrusive fashion; and in the part of it devoted to flowers there dwelt something indefinable that seemed older than the suburbs. The hedges, even, in being as neat as Surbiton managed to look as mellow as Hampton Court, as if their very artificiality belonged rather to Queen Anne than Queen Victoria; and the stone-rimmed pond with a ring of irises somehow looked like a classic pool and not merely an artificial puddle. It is idle to analyse how a man’s soul and social type will somehow soak into his surroundings; anyhow, the soul of Mr. Archer had sunk into the kitchen-garden so as to give it a fine shade of difference. He was after all a practical man, and the practice of his new trade was much more of a real appetite with him than his words would suggest. Hence the kitchen-garden was not artificial, but autochthonous; it really looked like a corner of a farm in the country; and all sorts of practical devices were set up there. Strawberries were netted-in against the birds; strings were stretched across with feathers fluttering from them; and in the middle of the principal bed stood an ancient and authentic scarecrow. Perhaps the only incongruous intruder, capable of disputing with the scarecrow his rural reign, was the curious boundary-stone which marked the edge of his domain; and which was, in fact, a shapeless South Sea idol, planted there with no more appropriateness than a door-scraper. But Colonel Crane would not have been so complete a type of the old army man if he had not hidden somewhere a hobby connected with his travels. His hobby had at one time been savage folklore; and he had the relic of it on the edge of the kitchen-garden. At the moment, however, he was not looking at the idol, but at the scarecrow.
“By the way, Archer,� he said, “don’t you think the scarecrow wants a new hat?�
“I should hardly think it would be necessary, sir,� said the gardener gravely.
“But look here,� said the Colonel, “you must consider the philosophy of scarecrows. In theory, that is supposed to convince some rather simple-minded bird that I am walking in my garden. That thing with the unmentionable hat is Me. A trifle sketchy, perhaps. Sort of impressionist portrait; but hardly likely to impress. Man with a hat like that would never be really firm with a sparrow. Conflict of wills, and all that, and I bet the sparrow would come out on top. By the way, what’s that stick tied on to it?�
“I believe, sir,� said Archer, “that it is supposed to represent a gun.�
“Held at a highly unconvincing angle,� observed Crane. “Man with a hat like that would be sure to miss.�
“Would you desire me to procure another hat?� inquired the patient Archer.
“No, no,� answered his master carelessly. “As the poor fellow’s got such a rotten hat, I’ll give him mine. Like the scene of St. Martin and the beggar.�
“Give him yours,� repeated Archer respectfully, but faintly.