"Where d'ye wish it a-laid?" he asked his master. "Darn it all! where d'ye wish it a-laid?"
"Along the sparrowgrass, I tell yer. And then get to mulchin'."
"Mulchin'!" said Mr. Minnidick severely. "Whativer fur? Darn it all! mulchin' harbours the vermin—mulchin' harbours the vermin. It'll spile the dahlias, I tell ye!"
All this conversation, in which he had no part, and from which it seemed that he was almost insolently excluded, drove the Duke to the very top of his temper.
"Marl and mulching be damned!" he shouted in a passionate voice, and presenting one of the hoes which he carried, he seemed about to go for the paragon and slay him where he stood.
"Save yourself!" cried Mr. Rodney, while Mr. Bush moved backwards with a certain amount of lumbering agility.
"Rodney!" exclaimed his Grace, "how dare you interfere?"
"Duke, I am your second," said Mr. Rodney, pale as ashes, but plucking up a semblance of spirit. "I act for you at your own request. Fight it out like—like men, but don't murder a gentleman in cold blood among his own vegetables."
"I'll murder him where I choose. Will you be killed or will you fight?" the Duke exclaimed frantically to the paragon.
"I won't be a-killed," replied he sulkily.