“But,” I debated, not quite making matters out to my own satisfaction, “the grenadier wanted us to examine her boxes, you know.”
“All for a blind, Johnny.”
It was the morning following this day, Monday, that, upon looking from my window, something struck me as being the matter with the garden. What was it? Why, all the roses were gone! Down I rushed, half dressed, burst out at the back-door, and gazed about me.
It was a scene of desolation. The rose-trees had been stripped; every individual rose was clipped neatly off from every tree. Two or three trees were left untouched before the front window; all the rest were rifled.
“What the mischief is the matter, Johnny?” called out Tod, as I was hastily questioning Betty. “You are making enough noise for ten, lad.”
“We have had robbers here, Tod. Thieves. All the roses are stolen.”
He made a worse noise than I did. Down he came, full rush, and stamped about the garden like any one wild. Old Druff and his wife heard him, and came up to the palings. Betty, busy in her kitchen, had not noticed the disaster.
“I see Tasker’s people here betimes this morning,” observed Druff. “A lot of ’em came. ’Twas a pity, I thought, to slice off all them nice big blows.”