“Hallo, lazybones!” cried Sir James, who was busy at work with a syringe water-shooting the various insects that had affected a lodgment amongst his peach and nectarine trees.
“Lazybones; be hanged! why, it’s barely five.”
“Well, that’s late enough this weather. I love being out early.”
“Work of supererogation to tell me that, old fellow.”
“So it is, Jack, and I suppose I’m a monomaniac. Fellows at the club laugh at me. They say, here you are—with plenty of money, which is true; heaps of brains—which is not; a title and a seat in the house, openings before you to get some day in the cabinet, and you go down in the country and work like a gardener. They think I’m a fool.”
“Let ’em,” said the doctor, grimly.
“But I am a bit of a lunatic over garden matters, and country-life, Jack.”
“So much the better,” said the doctor, lighting a cigar and beginning to walk up and down. “Go on with your squirting.”
“Shan’t! I shall follow your bad habit.” And Sir James took one of his friend’s cigars and began to smoke. “Pleasure and profit together,” he said; “it will kill insects.”
“Nice place, this,” said the doctor, glancing about the large light structure, with its healthy fruit trees growing vigorously; “but I should be careful about sudden changes. Might get a cold that would affect you seriously.”