know where to put his fat cattle; a carter wants to ask where a great
cart-horse is to stand--he and his horse together are hopelessly
floundering about in the crowd. The agent of a firm of implement
manufacturers has a telegram that another machine is coming, and is
anxious for extra space; the representative of an artificial manure
factory is vainly seeking a parcel that has got mislaid. The seedsman
requires permission to somewhat shift his stall; wherever is the
secretary?

When he appears, a clergyman at once pounces on him to apply for tickets
for the dinner, and is followed by a farmer, who must have a form and an
explanation how to fill it up. One of his labourers has decided at the
last minute to enter for a prize--he has had a year to make up his mind
in. A crowd of members of the Society are pushing round for a private
view, and watching the judges at their work. They all turn to the
secretary to ask where such and such an exhibit may be found, and demand
why on earth the catalogues are not ready? Mr. Secretary, a stout tenant
farmer, in breeches and top-boots, whose broad face beams with good nature
(selected, perhaps, for that very quality), pants and wipes his forehead,
for, despite the cold, the exertion and the universal flurry have made him
quiet hot. He gives every inquirer a civil answer, and affably begs the
eager folk that press upon him to come up into the committee-room.

At this a satisfied smile replaces the troubled expression upon their
faces. They feel that their difficulties are at an end; they have got hold
of the right man at last--there is something soothing in the very sound of
the committee-room. When they get up into this important apartment they
find it quite empty. There is a blazing fire in the grate, and littered on
the long table is a mass of forms, letters, lists, and proofs of the
catalogue waiting for the judges' decision to be entered. After half an