"He's so terribly stingy with his old conservatories. The Dowager—I mean Mrs. Trent, the principal, you know—wrote and asked him to let the botany class see his orchids, and he was just as rude as he could be!"
"I'm sure he didn't mean it," the man apologized.
"Oh, yes, he did!" maintained Patty. "He said he couldn't have a lot of school girls running through and breaking down his vines—as if we would do such a thing! We have perfectly beautiful manners. We learn 'em every Thursday night."
"Maybe he was a little rude," he agreed. "But you see, he hasn't had your advantages, Miss. He didn't learn his manners in a young ladies' boarding-school."
"He didn't learn them anywhere," Patty shrugged.
The gardener took a long pull at his pipe and studied the horizon with narrowed eyes.
"It isn't quite fair to judge him the way you would other people," he said slowly. "He's had a good deal of trouble in his life; and now he's old, and I dare say pretty lonely sometimes. All the world's against him—when people are decent, he knows it's because they're after something. Your teacher, now, is polite when she wants to see his conservatories, but I'll bet she believes he's an old thief!"
"Isn't he?" asked Patty.
The man grinned slightly.
"He has his moments of honesty like the rest of us."