"What did it weigh?" we asked anxiously. After two months of them potatoes had somewhat palled. We were growing rather tired of marrows, but we waited eagerly for his answer,
"Twenty-six pounds nine and three-quarter ounces."
Disappointment again. Our hopes were dashed to the ground. Some obscure individual, according to the local press, had produced from his humble cottage garden a marrow weighing thirty-four pounds, and the thing rankled.
"Mine was a scraggy specimen, more like an Indian club than a marrow."
"Crossed in love, perhaps," said Dalton.
"What your marrow wanted was nourishment," said the Authority. "A piece of worsted round its neck, with one end dipped in a jar of water."
"Excuse me," said Jones, "the very latest is to insert a tube in the stalk, and the flavour is greatly improved if you add a little sugar to the water. Almost like a melon."
"Do you take a card out for each marrow, or one for each plant?" asked Dalton.
The quiet man opposite put his paper down. He was a new-comer in the district. We liked him, although he had no sense of humour and did not appreciate Dalton's jokes. He appeared to be interested only in the startling and the odd.
"That reminds me," he said, "of a most extraordinary experience I had a few days ago. Of course you all know Enderby?"