"WHY, WHATEVER IS THE MATTER?' SHE CRIED."
There was stillness in the flowery region just above the Colonel's head. A perplexed balloonist was at one and the same time suppressing an outburst of hysterical laughter, and encouraging coy soil-theories to evolve themselves from the blank chambers of his brain.
"It is difficult to say off-hand," he began. "Every grower, you see, has his own views."
"So he has, so he has—and he likes to hear other people's views, if only for the sake of abusing them. What is your own candid opinion on the subject?"
"Well, as you ask me, I should say—use pretty much the same soil as you would for the other varieties. Er—ah—a suspicion of loam, not too dry, and fairly well matured, sprinkled over the surface, is not inadvisable."
"You don't say so? For my part, I stick to the old-established methods, but no doubt modern enterprise has done something in the way of development. Loam, you say, sprinkled over the surface? I must try it."
"But be careful that it just hits the happy mean in the matter of moisture. If you keep it too dry, the plant runs to leaf instead of flower; if too wet, the colour is apt to—to run a little."
The balloonist, having fairly spread the wings of his imagination, was by this time quite prepared to fly into fresh difficulties. He was enjoying himself tremendously, and had even forgotten that his prospective rescuer was rather late in coming to his aid.
"But," objected the Colonel, omitting to notice a slight horticultural mistake of the aeronaut's, "but how do you manage about the watering? The loam must be wet at some times and comparatively dry at others."
"My dear sir, you mistake; the latest method is to carefully remove the surface loam before watering, and then to replace it, moistened to the proper degree."