be interrupted while working, and, furthermore, Lady Caroline Byng
always got on his nerves, and never more so than when, as now, she
speculated on the possibility of a romance between her step-son
Reggie and his lordship's daughter Maud.

Only his intimates would have recognized in this curious
corduroy-trousered figure the seventh Earl of Marshmoreton. The
Lord Marshmoreton who made intermittent appearances in London, who
lunched among bishops at the Athenaeum Club without exciting
remark, was a correctly dressed gentleman whom no one would have
suspected of covering his sturdy legs in anything but the finest
cloth. But if you will glance at your copy of Who's Who, and turn
up the "M's", you will find in the space allotted to the Earl the
words "Hobby--Gardening". To which, in a burst of modest pride, his
lordship has added "Awarded first prize for Hybrid Teas, Temple
Flower Show, 1911". The words tell their own story.

Lord Marshmoreton was the most enthusiastic amateur gardener in a
land of enthusiastic amateur gardeners. He lived for his garden.
The love which other men expend on their nearest and dearest Lord
Marshmoreton lavished on seeds, roses and loamy soil. The hatred
which some of his order feel for Socialists and Demagogues Lord
Marshmoreton kept for roseslugs, rose-beetles and the small,
yellowish-white insect which is so depraved and sinister a
character that it goes through life with an alias--being sometimes
called a rose-hopper and sometimes a thrips. A simple soul, Lord
Marshmoreton--mild and pleasant. Yet put him among the thrips, and
he became a dealer-out of death and slaughter, a destroyer in the
class of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. Thrips feed on the
underside of rose leaves, sucking their juice and causing them to