garden on my hands. It is an unexpected result of my little enterprise,
which never aspired to the completeness of the Paris "Jardin des
Plantes."--_My Summer in a Garden_.


THE PLUMBER.

Speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose
society is to be more desired for this quality than that of plumbers!
They are the most agreeable men I know; and the boys in the business
begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is, that
they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain became
disabled: the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with the
implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a
good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found
the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,--talk by
the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious;
and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their
way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job.
The work dragged a little,--as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers
had occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon
arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would
go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would
await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and
talk,--always by the hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have
something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and
always willing to stop and talk about the job, or any thing else, when I
went near them. Nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said to
be the bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it said,
that I never observed any thing of it in them. They can afford to wait.