"She has had a nose, and as good a one as yours. It is the mere accident of attrition. But here comes George! What can George want now? He knows that I never should be interrupted, with all these drawers open. If any rival Numismatist—I am sorry to say there is no honesty among them. Even the people at the British Museum, when I lent them for comparison, kept back three most valuable—the gems, the gems of my whole collection!"
"Well, sir, I don't blame them. It was for the instruction of the nation." I knew that my father was even more proud than indignant at this fact—if fact it was, and he had long ago made it one, by telling it at least twice a-day. "But I don't want to disturb you, sir, and I don't often do it. Only there are two things that I am bound to consult you about immediately, if you can spare me a few minutes, without having to put more important work aside."
My father sighed; for he hated business, as he had good cause to do, while Grace walked away with a lofty air, like a lady denied the franchise. Finding myself rather nervous, I began in a craven manner with other people's business.
"Bandilow wants to know, sir, whether he may break up half-moon meadow, and plant it with apple- and pear-trees. He says it is the only chance of his being able to pay his rent, next Lady day."
"But, my dear George," Sir Harold replied, while he spread a silk handkerchief over his coins, lest the atmosphere of business should corrode them, "does the silly fellow expect to realise a fruit-crop betwixt this and then?"
"Very likely he does, for he has found an apple on a tree he planted not more than two years ago; and the Society for the Promotion of British Fructiculture has sent him a coloured print of apples bigger than turnips and brighter than prize carnations. And you know what Lord Melladew did for him; they would not advance him any money,—in fact, he had to subscribe to them,—but for a 'nominal price' they supplied him with a list of fifteen hundred kinds——"
"Oh, I don't want to hear any more about that! I should have some faith in it, if they put their own money into it, instead of being paid for persuading other people to invest in it. However, it is no concern of mine."
"Excuse me, sir, but I think it is. In a sort of sideway, at any rate. You would not like an old tenant, whose family has held under ours for at least three centuries, to be robbed by private folly of the little the public mania has left him. I know the climate of Surrey pretty well, and there are very few better in England. Last May, the mercury stood below freezing point at six in the morning, no less than eight times; and twice it was eight degrees below. Have we any fruit-bloom that can laugh at that? You would not like an elderly man like Bandilow, with a large family dependent upon him, to be ruined, would you now? And he is already in arrears of rent?"
"Certainly I should grieve at that, and throw him off every farthing, little as we can afford it. But my dear boy, you make the worst of things, and you are sadly obstinate; which, perhaps, is a family failing. Men of tenfold your knowledge have proved that the only remedy, and a very easy one, offered by Providence itself, for the present starvation of agriculture, is to take to horticulture. If wheat will not pay at 30s. per quarter, fall back upon apples at a pound a bushel. And then there is jam, a glorious scheme."