HOW IT'S DONE.

(_A HANDBOOK TO HONESTY._)

NO. IV.--THE GRAND OLD (JOBBING) GARDENER.

SCENE--_the Garden of a modest Suburban Villa. Present,
Simple Citizen, with budding horticultural ambitions, and
Jobbing Gardener, "highly recommended" for skill and low
charges. The latter is a grizzled personage, very bowed as to
back, and baggy as to breeches, but in his manner combining
oracular "knowingness" and deferential plausibility in a
remarkable degree._

_Simple Citizen_. You see SMUGGINS, things are a little bit in the
rough here, at present.

_Grand Old Gardener_. Ah, you may well say that, Sir! Bin allowed to
run to rack _and_ ruin, this here pooty bit o' garding has. Want a lot
o' clearing, scurryfunging, and topping and lopping, afore it'll look
anythink like. But it's got the making of a puffeck parrydise in it, a
puffeck parrydise it has--_with_ my adwice.

_S.C._ Glad to hear you say so, SMUGGINS. Now what I propose is--

_G.O.G._ (_laying a horny hand on S.C.'s coat-sleeve_). If you'll
ascuse me, Sir, I'll jest give yer _my_ ideas. It'll save time. (_Lays
down artfully the lines of a plan involving radical alteration of
paths, and lawns, and beds, shifting of shrubs, cutting down of trees,
rooting up of trailers, and what he calls "toppin' an' loppin'" to a