“Well, thank heaven,” said Tom, “I’ve no occasion for book-keeping. I’ve no credit to give, and I get as little. Blessed are those that have nothing, for they cannot lose it. Now, I reckon you gentlemen farmers find many slips betwixt the cup and lip. I can tell you of a funny thing as happened to an alderman of our town.”
“Where’s your town? I thought all towns were alike to your trade.”
“Well, that’s just it,” said Tom; “but Tag-town, in the land of Green Ginger, where the houses are built of black-puddings and thatched with pancakes, and with windows that used to be glazed with barley-sugar, but the lads have broken all the panes. That is my particular town; and there, as I was going to say, is a jolly alderman, a big, broadchested, hearty, laughing man he is, and pokes his fingers in your sides when he tells you a good story. Well, he has a fine, large garden, and in the middle of it a fine, large lawn, and in the middle of the lawn is a fine, large oak-tree. Now, the grass of the lawn had become thin, and the alderman told his gardener to dig up his lawn, and sow it with barley for the fowls, and next year they would turf the lawn again. The gardener thought this an odd fancy, but said he to himself, aldermen arn’t farmers, nor yet gardeners.”
“He wor right there,” said the farmers.
“Nothing would serve our alderman, but the lawn must be dug up and sown with barley, and so it was at spring. The barley came up and grew finely, and the alderman said to the gardener, ‘Well, John, we shall have a fine crop here.’
“‘No, sir,’ said the gardener; ‘you’ll excuse me, but you’ll just have none at all.’”
“‘None at all; why not?’ said the alderman. ‘It looks very healthy.’
“‘It does so,’ said the gardener; ‘but mark my word—you won’t have no barley here.’
“‘Why, how is that?’ demanded the alderman.
“‘I can’t just say,’ said the gardener, ‘but that’s how it will be.’