don't want it staring at me.'

"Henery walked off offended, and Bill went on with his digging. He
wouldn't go to work, and 'e 'ad his breakfast in the garden, and his
wife spent all the morning in the front answering the neighbours'
questions and begging of 'em to go in and say something to Bill. One
of 'em did go, and came back a'most directly and stood there for hours
telling diff'rent people wot Bill 'ad said to 'er, and asking whether 'e
couldn't be locked up for it.

"By tea-time Bill was dead-beat, and that stiff he could 'ardly raise
'is bread and butter to his mouth. Several o' the chaps looked in in the
evening, but all they could get out of 'im was, that it was a new way
o' cultivating 'is garden 'e 'ad just 'eard of, and that those who lived
the longest would see the most. By night-time 'e'd nearly finished the
job, and 'is garden was just ruined.

"Afore people 'ad done talking about Bill, I'm blest if Peter Smith
didn't go and cultivate 'is garden in exactly the same way. The parson
and 'is wife was away on their 'oliday, and nobody could say a word. The
curate who 'ad come over to take 'is place for a time, and who took the
names of people for the Flower Show, did point out to 'im that he was
spoiling 'is chances, but Peter was so rude to 'im that he didn't stay
long enough to say much.

"When Joe Gubbins started digging up 'is garden people began to think
they were all bewitched, and I went round to see Henery Walker to tell
'im wot a fine chance 'e'd got, and to remind 'im that I'd put another
ninepence on 'im the night before. All 'e said was, 'More fool you,' and
went on digging a 'ole in his garden big enough to put a 'ouse in.

"In a fortnight's time there wasn't a garden worth looking at in the
place, and it was quite clear there'd be no Flower Show that year, and
of all the silly, bad-tempered men in the place them as 'ad dug up their
pretty gardens was the wust.

"It was just a few days before the day fixed for the Flower Show, and I
was walking up the road when I see Joe and Henery Walker and one or two
more leaning over Bob Pretty's fence and talking to 'im. I stopped, too,
to see what they were looking at, and found they was watching Bob's
two boys a-weeding of 'is garden. It was a disgraceful, untidy sort
of place, as I said before, with a few marigolds and nasturtiums, and
sich-like put in anywhere, and Bob was walking up and down smoking of
'is pipe and watching 'is wife hoe atween the