of envy and hatred did not carry a blight on the
innocent flowers which had excited it.

When the evil spirit has once taken hold of the heart of man, it urges
him on, without letting him stop. Thus Boxtel soon was no longer content
with seeing Van Baerle. He wanted to see his flowers, too; he had
the feelings of an artist, the master-piece of a rival engrossed his
interest.

He therefore bought a telescope, which enabled him to watch as
accurately as did the owner himself every progressive development of
the flower, from the moment when, in the first year, its pale seed-leaf
begins to peep from the ground, to that glorious one, when, after five
years, its petals at last reveal the hidden treasures of its chalice.
How often had the miserable, jealous man to observe in Van Baerle's beds
tulips which dazzled him by their beauty, and almost choked him by their
perfection!

And then, after the first blush of the admiration which he could not
help feeling, he began to be tortured by the pangs of envy, by that slow
fever which creeps over the heart and changes it into a nest of vipers,
each devouring the other and ever born anew. How often did Boxtel, in
the midst of tortures which no pen is able fully to describe,--how
often did he feel an inclination to jump down into the garden during the
night, to destroy the plants, to tear the bulbs with his teeth, and to
sacrifice to his wrath the owner himself, if he should venture to stand
up for the defence of his tulips!

But to kill a tulip was a horrible crime in the eyes of a genuine
tulip-fancier; as to killing a man, it would not have mattered so very
much.

Yet Van Baerle made such progress in the noble science of growing
tulips, which he seemed to master with the true instinct of genius, that
Boxtel at last was maddened to such a degree as to think of throwing
stones and sticks into the flower-stands of his neighbour. But,
remembering that he would be sure to be found out, and that he would not
only be punished by law, but also dishonoured for ever in the face of
all the tulip-growers of Europe, he had recourse to stratagem, and, to
gratify his hatred, tried to devise a plan by means of which he might
gain his ends without being compromised himself.

He considered a long time, and at last his meditations were crowned with
success.

One evening he tied two cats together by their hind legs with a string
about six feet in length, and threw them from the wall into the m