He recognized Tod’s voice, turned, and came into the greenhouse. His look of amazement would have made a picture.
“Sakes alive! Jenkins, what have done this?”
“Do you know anything about it, Drew?” asked Tod.
“Me, sir?” answered Drew, turning his wide-open eyes on Tod, in surprise at the question. “I don’t as much as know what it is.”
“Mr. Joe, I think the master ought to be told of this,” said Jenkins. “As well get it over.”
He meant the explosion of wrath that was sure to come when the Squire saw the ravages. Tod never stirred. Who was to tell him? It was like the mice proposing to bell the cat: nobody offered to do it.
“You go, Johnny,” said Tod, by-and-by. “Perhaps he’s getting up now.”
I went. I always did what he ordered me, and heard Mrs. Todhetley in her dressing-room. She had her white petticoats on, doing her hair. When I told her, she just backed into a chair and turned as white as Jenkins.
“What’s that, Johnny?” roared out the Squire from his bed. I hadn’t noticed that the door between the rooms was open.
“Something is wrong in the greenhouse, sir.”