The Master laughed.
"Let us hope things are not as desperate as all that. I was looking at your border. Oh, what pauper fare! and what a lot of rubbish in it. Licence has reigned here for many a long year."
"For over twenty," I exclaimed savagely. "Griggs has been here quite that time."
"It used to look very well in Mr Wood's time, but that is many years ago, and he devoted himself chiefly to his roses. It is a pity you did not do it in the autumn."
"Oh, don't, Master!" I cried dolefully. "Nothing is more trying to my temper than to be told of all the things that ought to have been done months and years ago. I can't go back and do them!"
"No more you can. There is a great deal of sound sense in that remark, only—"
"And don't tell me to wait until the autumn again. I can't always be waiting for the other end of the year to do the things I want done now."
"Oh! then let us go forward at once," said the Master.
"What shall I do?" asked the Young Man, with as much energy as though the afternoon were just beginning. "Shall I take out the roots we have put in to begin with?"
The Master again looked up and down, and I could see he was again regretting the autumn.