companioned in his thoughts and feelings,
and what a hunger he may have felt for the sympathy of the undeveloped
youngster who trotted by his side.

"I'm no gardener," he said, "I'm no anything. Why the devil did I start
gardening?

"I suppose man was created to mind a garden... But the Fall let us out
of that! What was I created for? God! what was I created for?...

"Slaves to matter! Minding inanimate things! It doesn't suit me, you
know. I've got no hands and no patience. I've mucked about with life.
Mucked about with life." He suddenly addressed himself to me, and for
an instant I started like an eavesdropper discovered. "Whatever you do,
boy, whatever you do, make a Plan. Make a good Plan and stick to it.
Find out what life is about--I never have--and set yourself to do
whatever you ought to do. I admit it's a puzzle....

"Those damned houses have been the curse of my life. Stucco white
elephants! Beastly cracked stucco with stains of green--black and green.
Conferva and soot.... Property, they are!... Beware of Things, Dick,
beware of Things! Before you know where you are you are waiting on them
and minding them. They'll eat your life up. Eat up your hours and your
blood and energy! When those houses came to me, I ought to have
sold them--or fled the country. I ought to have cleared out.
Sarcophagi--eaters of men! Oh! the hours and days of work, the nights
of anxiety those vile houses have cost me! The painting! It worked up
my arms; it got all over me. I stank of it. It made me ill. It isn't
living--it's minding....

"Property's the curse of life. Property! Ugh! Look at this country all
cut up into silly little parallelograms, look at all those villas we
passed just now and those potato patches and that tarred shanty and the
hedge! Somebody's minding every bit of it like a dog tied to a cart's
tail. Patching it and bothering about it. Bothering! Yapping at every
passer-by. Look at that notice-board! One rotten worried little beast
wants to keep us other rotten little beasts off HIS patch,--God knows
why! Look at the weeds in it. Look at the mended fence!... There's no
property worth having, Dick, but money. That's only good to spend.
All these things. Human souls buried under a cartload of blithering
rubbish....

"I'm not a fool, Dick. I have qualities, imagination, a sort of go. I
ought to have made a better thing of life.

"I'm sure I could have done things. Only the old people pulled my leg.
They star