, Patty on the wheelbarrow, the man on an upturned tub.

"How do you like working for Mr. Weatherby?" she inquired. "Is he as bad
as the papers make out?"

The gardener chuckled slightly as he lighted his pipe.

"Well," he said judiciously, "he's always been very decent to me, but I
don't know as his enemies have any cause to love him."

"I think he's horrid!" said Patty.

"Why?" asked the man with a slight air of challenge. He was quite
willing to run his master down himself, but he would not permit an
outsider to do it.

"He's so terribly stingy with his old conservatories. The Dowager--I
mean Mrs. Trent, the principal, you know--wrote and asked him to let the
botany class see his orchids, and he was just as rude as he could be!"

"I'm sure he didn't mean it," the man apologized.

"Oh, yes, he did!" maintained Patty. "He said he couldn't have a lot of
school girls running through and breaking down his vines--as if we would
do such a thing! We have perfectly beautiful manners. We learn 'em every
Thursday night."

"Maybe he was a little rude," he agreed. "But you see, he hasn't had
your advantages, Miss. He didn't learn his manners in a young ladies'
boarding-school."

"He didn't learn them anywhere," Patty shrugged.

The gardener took a long pull at his pipe and studied the horizon with
narrowed eyes.

"It isn't quite fair to judge him the way you would other people," he
said slowly. "He's had a good deal of trouble in his life; and now he's
old, and I dare say pretty lonely sometimes. All the world's against
him--when people are decent, he knows it's because they're after
something. Your teacher, now, is polite when she wants to see his
conservatories, but I'll bet she believes he's an old thief!"

"Isn't he?" asked Patty.

The man grinned slightly.

"He has his moments of honesty like the rest of us."

"Perhaps," Patty grudgingly conceded, "he may not be so bad when you
know him. It's often the way. Now, there was Lordy, our Latin teacher. I
used to despise her; and then--in the hour of trial--she came up to the
scratch, and was _per-fect-ly bully_!"

He held out his hand.

"A penny."

Patty handed him back his own.

"She kept me from getting expelled--she did, really. I've never been
able to hate her since. And you know, I miss it dreadfully. It's sort of
fun having an enemy."

"I've had a good many," he nodded, "and I've always managed to enjoy
them."

"And probably they're really quit