"A great, a lofty gentleman! . . . You'll excuse me, cavalier, but I
am not always nor altogether an ass--and I say to you that half a
dozen such knights would rejuvenate Christendom. As it is, we live
in the last worst ages when the breed can afford but one phoenix at a
time, and he must perforce spend himself on forlorn hopes. Mark you,
I say 'spend,' not 'waste': the seed of such examples cannot be
wasted--"
'Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust:'
nay, not their actions only, but their every high thought which
either fate froze or fortune and circumstance choked before it could
put forth flower. Did I ever tell you, Cavalier, the Story of My
Father and the Jobbing Gardener?"
"Not that I remember," said I.
"Yet it is full of instruction as an egg is full of meat. My father,
who (let me remind you) is a wholesale dealer in flash jewellery, had
ever a passion for gardening, albeit that for long he had neither the
time nor the money nor even the space to indulge his hobby.
His garden--a parallelogram of seventy-two feet by twenty-three,
confined by brick walls--lay at the back of our domicile, which
excluded all but the late afternoon sunshine.
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