"But you don't say what sort of tulips, which are red and which yellow. Nor what sort of narcissus, which are daffodils and which the bunchy things."
"No," Mr. Gillat admitted; "no, they got mixed in the digging up; I forgot, and put them all in the barrow together; that's how it happened."
"What? The whole lot?" the Captain inquired. "The streaked daffodil and all? What did Julia say?"
"She said it did not matter," Johnny told him; "they'll be all the more surprise to us when they come up next year."
"She didn't mind, not even about the streaked daffodil?"
"Oh, that was not there," Mr. Gillat said, serenely unconscious that the fate of that bulb was the only interest. "We have got that by itself."
He showed a little piece of shelf penned off from the rest and carefully covered with wire netting for fear of rats. Three different shaped bulbs were there in a row.
"That's it," Johnny said, pointing to one of the three. "And that end one is the red tulip with the black middle; it is supposed to be very good; and that other is the double blue hyacinth from down by the gate; we are going to try it in a pot in the house next year and have it bloom early."
Captain Polkington nodded, but did not show much interest. "Did you put these here, or did she?" he asked.
"She did," Johnny answered. "She cleans them much better than I do, and we knew they were choice ones, the best one of each kind, so she cleaned them; but I made the wire cover."