It took me a good many years to find out what my
real fancy was. I hated my hotel and my store,
but I was crazy about my garden. Finally an American
gentleman came along one day, and he put up at my place,
and he saw that I was as near ruined as they make 'em,
and he says to me, 'You're no good to run a hotel,
nor yet a store, and this aint your country for a cent.
What you're born for is to grow flowers. You can't
afford to do it here, because nobody'll pay you for it,
but you gather up your seeds and roots and so on, and come
along with me to Atlanta, Georgia, and I'll put fat on
your bones.'

"That's what he said to me, and I took him at his word,
and I was with him two years, and then I thought I'd like to
come to England, and since then I've worked my way up here,
till now I take a Royal Horticultural medal regular,
and there's a clematis with salmon-coloured bars that'll
be in the market next spring that's named after my master.
And what could I ask more 'n that?"

"Quite right," said Thorpe. "What time do they have
breakfast here?"

The gardener's round, phlegmatic, florid countenance had
taken on a mild glow of animation during his narrative.
It relapsed into lethargy at the advent of this new topic.

"It seems to me they eat at all hours," he said.
"But if you want to see his Lordship," he went on,