"Finest show of yellow pansies in England in that there garden,
sir," hissed the tempter. "I'll help you up, sir."

How it happened no one will ever know but that positive enthusiasm
of the Major's life triumphed over all its negative traditions,
and with an easy leap and swing that showed that he was in no need
of physical assistance, he stood on the wall at the end of the
strange garden. The second after, the flapping of the frock-coat
at his knees made him feel inexpressibly a fool. But the next
instant all such trifling sentiments were swallowed up by the most
appalling shock of surprise the old soldier had ever felt in all
his bold and wandering existence. His eyes fell upon the garden,
and there across a large bed in the centre of the lawn was a vast
pattern of pansies; they were splendid flowers, but for once it
was not their horticultural aspects that Major Brown beheld, for
the pansies were arranged in gigantic capital letters so as to
form the sentence:

DEATH TO MAJOR BROWN

A kindly looking old man, with white whiskers, was watering them.
Brown looked sharply back at the road behind him; the man with the
barrow had suddenly vanished. Then he looked again at the lawn
with its incredible inscription. Another man might have thought he
had gone mad, but Brown did not. When romantic ladies gushed over
his V.C. and his military exploits, he sometimes felt himself to
be a painfully prosaic person, but by the same token he knew he
was incurably sane. Another man, again, might have thought himself
a victim of a passing practical joke, but Brown could not easily