judgment he has to cultivate in order to carry on his work with any success.

In the course of time Crispin became so well skilled that he could not only tell a mushroom from a toadstool at the distance of two hundred yards, but his hearing became so acute that he could even hear them growing, and learnt to distinguish the sound of each as it broke through the earth. Indeed, he had no need for any alarm to wake him from his heavy slumbers and call him to his work in the fields. However cautiously a mushroom made its appearance, at its first rumble, old Crispin would jump from his hard bed, hastily dress himself, and, often without tasting a morsel of breakfast, be out of the house and on to the field in time to see the newcomer pop its head through the earth. This he would pick, and then he would hop about with his head on one side[Pg 4] listening for others like some old starling listening for worms, at the same time mewing like a cat to frighten away the birds that prey on the mushrooms. He was then able to fill his basket with the very freshest crop and take them round to people's houses in time for breakfast.

[Pg 4]

With such anxious work it will be readily understood that few mushroom gatherers can remain in the best of health for many years, and it so happened that in time the anxieties connected with the gathering of mushrooms began to affect old Crispin, so that he fell ill and completely lost his appetite. Chloe called in the doctor, but the latter at first could do nothing for him. He painted Crispin's chest and then his back with iodine; he rubbed him well with the roots of sarsaparilla; he made him sleep first on his right side, then on his left, and finally covered him in brown paper plasters and dock-leaf poultices and sent him to the sea-side with strict injunctions to take to sea-bathing, running, and aeroplaning, but it was all of no avail.

With the assistance of Boadicea, Chloe now tried to tempt her husband with every known and unknown dish, and when these failed, like a good wife, she invented others. She made trifles of vegetable marrow, tartlets of hen feathers to soothe the nerves, salads of spinach and carraway comfits, delicacies composed of porridge and mint, and the most luscious stews of pine-cones and lard. She then tried him with even[Pg 5] lighter dishes, but it was no good. He became thinner and thinner every day, and his temper was growing shorter and shorter, when at last, to her great joy, she succeeded in making a jelly that really seemed to take his fancy.

[Pg 5]

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