If you asked him when the war would be won he pleaded ignorance; but if
you asked him where it would be won, his answer invariably was: "On t'
tatie-patches at Horsforth." He still nursed his grievances, for pet
grievances are not yet included in the tax on luxuries, but these were
no longer suffragettes and lawyers, but slugs, "mawks," and
"mowdiewarps." In a word, Ingham was one of the many Englishmen whom
four years of war conditions have re-created. He was slimmer and more
agile than in 1914, and of the "owd Abe" of pre-war times all that
remained was his love of tall stories. I was privileged to listen to one
of the tallest of these one evening, after he had paid a visit of
inspection to my garden and was smoking a pipe with me under my
lime-tree.

"Fowks tell queer tales 'bout 'lotments," he began, "but I reckon
they're nobbut blether anent t' tale that I could tell o' what happened
me last yeer."

"What was that, Abe?" I asked. "Did you find a magpie's nest in your
Jerusalem artichokes or half-crowns in the hearts of your pickling
cabbages?"

"None o' your fleerin'," he replied. "What I'm tellin' you is t' truth,
or if it isn't' truth it's a parable, and I reckon a parable's Bible
truth. It were gettin' on towards back-end, and I'd bin diggin' potatoes
while I were in a fair sweat wi' t' heat. So I reckoned I'd just sit
down for a bit on t' bench I'd made an' rest misen. Efter a while I gat
agate once more, an' I'd ommost finished my row of potates when my fork
gat howd o' summat big. At first I thowt it were happen a gert stone
that I'd left i' t' grund, but it were nowt o' sort. 'Twere a potate,
sure enough, but I'd niver set eyes on owt like it afore, nor thee