"Yes, sir," I said, with my heart beating fast, "I've heard of gentlemen
farmers."

"But not of gentlemen market-gardeners, eh? No, my boy, they don't call
us gentlemen, and I never professed to be one; but a man may be a
gentleman at heart whatever his business, and that's better than being a
gentleman in name."

I looked up in his fresh red face, and there was such a kindly look in
it that I felt happier than I had been for weeks, and I don't know what
moved me to do it, but I laid my hand upon his arm.

He looked down at me thoughtfully as he went on.

"People are rather strange about these things. Gentleman farmer
cultivates a hundred acres of land that he pays a hundred and fifty
pounds a year for say: market-gardener cultivates twenty acres that he
pays two or three hundred for; and they call the one a gentleman, the
other a gardener. But it don't matter, Master Dennison, a bit. Does
it?"

"No, sir," I said, "I don't think so."

"Old business, gardening," he went on, with a dry look at me--"very old.
Let me see. There was a man named Adam took to it first, wasn't there?
Cultivated a garden, didn't he?"

I nodded and smiled.

"Ah, yes," he said; "but that was a long time ago, and you've not been
brought up for such a business. You wouldn't like it."

"Indeed, but I should, sir," I cried enthusiastically.

"No, no," he said, deliberately. "Don't be in a hurry to choose, my
boy. I knew a lad once who said he would like to be a sailor, and he
went to sea and had such a taste of it from London to Plymouth that he
would not go any farther, and they had to set him ashore."

"He must have been a great coward," I said.

"To be sure he was; but then you might be if you pricked your finger
with the thorns of a rose, or had to do something in the garden when it
was freezing hard, eh?"

"I don't think I should be," I replied.

"But you must think," he said. "It's very nice to see flowers blooming
and fruit fit to pick with the sun shining and the sky blue; but life is
not all summer, my boy, is it? There are wet days and storms, and rough
times, and the flowers you see blossoming have been got ready in the
cold wintry weather, when they were only seeds, or bare shabby-looking
roots."

"Yes, I know that," I said.

"And you think you would like to come?"

"Yes, sir."

"What for? to play in the garden, and look on while the work is done?"

"I think I should be ashamed to do that," I said; "it wo