Mr. Marrapit peered at the basket. "You have remarkably few."

"There ain't never many," Frederick said with quiet pride--"there
ain't never many if you keep 'em down by always doin' your job."

Mr. Marrapit pointed: "They grow thick at your feet, sir!"

In round-eyed astonishment Frederick peered low. "They spring up the
minute your back's turned, them weeds. They want a weed destroyer what
you pours out of a can."

"You are the weed-destroyer," Mr. Marrapit said sternly. "Be careful.
It is very true that they spring up whenever _my_ back is turned.
Be careful." He passed on.

"Blarst yer back," murmured Frederick, bending his own to the task.



IV.

A few yards further Mr. Marrapit again paused. Against a laurel bush
stood a pair of human legs, the seat of whose encasing trousers stared
gloomily upwards at the sky. With a small twig he carried Mr. Marrapit
tapped the seat. Three or four raps were necessary; slowly it
straightened into line with the legs; from the abyss of the bush a
back, shoulders, head, appeared.

Just as the ostrich with buried head believes itself hid from
observation, so it was with Mr. Fletcher, needing peace, a habit to