"Why," said Jim, "I bet I could tug out any you could wedge in."
"That's the art; you must wedge right and tug just enough."
"And why," I asked again, "why this tugging and this wedging?"
"Oh, because otherwise they don't catch hold properly and make themselves at home. I didn't mean to spoil your neat box," he continued penitently. "May I help you?"
"Why, of course you must," I said, brightening up. "Look at all that has to be done. Jim, dear, fill those boxes nicely with mould, a judicious mixture of looseness and compression."
"I've other fish to fry this afternoon. If his Reverence's Young Man will do some beastly algebra for me I will stay and mess about with you; if not, he has got to do the messing."
And so Jim deserted us, and we planted and pulled at each other's boxes, and I certainly tried to get some of his out. And then the fresh difficulty faced us where to put all these new boxes, for they had to be protected from the still frosty nights, and also from any too heavy rains which might, perchance, drown them. I wanted much more room than the one frame afforded, even could I turn out all the scraggy geraniums.
"They must be protected somehow," I said despondingly, "and we can't carry them in and out of doors, and oh! how heavy even these little boxes are. There's the verandah, but the Others will never let me crowd them out with these boxes. It is just getting sunny out there. What can we do?"
The Young Man looked round and thought, and thought, and then it came, an idea worth patenting.