Mr. Fletcher addressed the snail. “He asts a question. I beg not to answer it. He insists. I tell him. I'm insolent.” He sighed; the tyranny of the world pressed heavily upon this man.
Mr. Marrapit advertised annoyance by clicks of his tongue: “You are insolent when you swear in my presence. You are insolent when you impute to my cats a fault that is not theirs.”
“I ain't blamin' the cats. It's natural to them. Whenever the wind sets this way I notice it. It's blamin' me I complain of. I don't draw the smell. I try to get away from it. It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a wind-shaft.”
Whenever Mr. Marrapit had occasion to speak with Mr. Fletcher, after the first few exchanges he would swallow with distinct effort. It was wrath he swallowed; and bitter as the pill was, rarely did he fail to force it down. Mr. Fletcher spoke to him as no other member of his establishment dared speak. The formula of dismissal would leap to Mr. Marrapit's mouth: knowledge of the unusually small wage for which Mr. Fletcher worked caused it to be stifled ere it found tongue. Thousands of inferiors have daily to bow to humiliations from their employers; it is an encouraging thought for this army that masters there be who, restrained by parsimony, daily writhe beneath impertinences from valuable, ill-paid servants.
Mr. Marrapit swallowed. He said: “To the smell of which I complain my cats are no party. It is tobacco. The air reeks of tobacco. I will not have tobacco in my garden.”
Twice, with a roaring sound, Mr. Fletcher inhaled. He pointed towards an elm against the wall: “It comes from over there.”
“Ascertain.”
The gardener plunged through the bushes; nosed laboriously; his inhalations rasped across the shrubs. “There's no smoking here,” he called.
“Someone, in some place concealed, indubitably smokes. Yourself you have noticed it. Follow the scent.”
Exertion beaded upon Mr. Fletcher's brow. He drew his hand across it; thrust a damp and gloomy face between the foliage towards his master.
“I'd like to know,” he asked, “if
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