arden." It's only Vee's way of playin'
me as a useful and industrious citizen. Course, I did buy the seeds and
all the shiny hoes and rakes and things, and I studied up the catalogues
until I could tell the carrots from the cucumbers; but I must admit that
beyond givin' the different beds the once-over every now and then, and
pullin' up a few tomato plants that I thought was weeds, I didn't do
much more than underwrite the enterprise.

As a matter of fact, it was mostly Leon Battou, the old Frenchy who does
our cookin', that really ran the garden. Say, that old boy would have
something green growin' if he lived in the subway and had to bring down
his real estate in paper bags. It was partly on his account, you know,
that we left our studio apartment and moved out in the forty-five
minutes commutin' zone. Then, too, there was Joe Cirollo, who comes in
by the day to cut the grass and keep the flower beds slicked up, and do
the heavy spadin'. And with Vee keepin' books on what was spent and what
we got you can guess I wasn't overworked. Also it's a cinch that garden
plot just had to hump itself and make good.

Auntie ain't wise to all this, though. So she raises her eyebrows and
remarks: "A garden? Really! I should like to see it. A few radishes and
spindly lettuce, I suppose?"

"Say, come have a look!" says I.

And when I'd pointed out the half acre of potatoes, and the long rows of
corn and string beans and peas--and I hope I called 'em all by their
right names--I sure had the old girl hedgin' some. But trust her!

"With so much land, though," she goes on, "it seems to me you ought to
be raising your eggs and chickens as well."

"Oh, we've planned for all that," says I, "ducks and hens and geese and
turkeys; maybe pheasants and quail."

"Quail!" says Auntie. "Why, I didn't know one could raise quail. I
thought they----"

"When I get started raisin' things," says I, "I'm apt to go the limit."

"I shall be interested to see what success you have," says she.

"Sure!" says I. "Drop around again--next fall."

You wouldn't have thought she'd been disagreeable enough to go and
rehearse all this innocent little bluff of mine to Vee, would you? But
she does, it seems. And of course Vee has to back me up.

"But, Torchy!" she protests, after Auntie's gone. "How could you tell
her such whoppers?"

"Easiest thing I do," says I. "But who knows what we'll do next in the
nourishment producin' line? Hasn't old Leon been be