in the border, whereas he had himself as yet only
succeeded in producing the light brown.

It might perhaps be interesting to explain to the gentle reader the
beautiful chain of theories which go to prove that the tulip borrows its
colors from the elements; perhaps we should give him pleasure if we were
to maintain and establish that nothing is impossible for a florist who
avails himself with judgment and discretion and patience of the sun's
heat; the clear water, the juices of the earth, and the cool breezes.
But this is not a treatise upon tulips in general; it is the story of
one particular tulip which we have undertaken to write, and to that we
limit ourselves, however alluring the subject which is so closely allied
to ours.

Boxtel, once more worsted by the superiority of his hated rival, was
now completely disgusted with tulip-growing, and, being driven half mad,
devoted himself entirely to observation.

The house of his rival was quite open to view; a garden exposed to the
sun; cabinets with glass walls, shelves, cupboards, boxes, and ticketed
pigeon-holes, which could easily be surveyed by the telescope. Boxtel
allowed his bulbs to rot in the pits, his seedlings to dry up in their
cases, and his tulips to wither in the borders and henceforward occupied
himself with nothing else but the doings at Van Baerle's. He breathed
through the stalks of Van Baerle's tulips, quenched his thirst with the
water he sprinkled upon them, and feasted on the fine soft earth which
his neighbour scattered upon his cherished bulbs.

But the most curious part of the operations was not performed in the
garden.

It might be one o'clock in the morning when Van Baerle went up to his
laboratory, into the glazed cabinet whither Boxtel's telescope had such
an easy access; and here, as soon as the lamp illuminated the walls and
windows, Boxtel saw the inventive genius of his rival at work.

He beheld him sifting his seeds, and soaking them in liquids which were
destined to modify or to deepen their colours. He knew what Cornelius
meant when heating certain grains, then moistening them, then combining
them with others by a sort of grafting,--a minute and marvellously
delicate manipulation,--and when he shut up in darkness those which were
expected to furnish the black colour, exposed to the sun or to the
lamp those which were to produce red, and placed between the endless
reflections of two water-mirrors those intended for white, the pur