how long he dragged the weight of the conversation from one point to another I do not know. It must have been entirely by his own exertions. I can conceive the sort of help that Cruikshank would give him. He brought it at last, however, to the subject he desired. He spoke of the forcing of plants and then the forcing of fruits. He spoke quite eloquently, Cruikshank told us, but there was a strain of nervousness in all that he said which even my gardener, my comptroller of the household, was constrained to notice.

"I felt," said Cruikshank to us afterwards, "as if something were coming."

He was quite right. Something did come. Out of the depths of his side pockets the old gentleman produced four partially ripe tomatoes.

"Well, you don't believe in forcing," said he; "but what do you think of these? We forced these in our little green-house. Quite a number of them." And he handed the whole lot into Cruikshank's hands.

"But why did you pick them before they were ripe?"

"Oh, they'll ripen," said he, easily; "you put them in a warm room in the window where they'll catch the sun. You'll be able to eat them in less than a week."

Now, there was a delicacy of insinuation about all this, far more delicate and subtle than the little girl with the basket of vegetables in one hand and a gift of flowers in the other. Those tomatoes were the property of Mrs. Quigley. Was this a present from her? Was he meant to keep them and ripen and eat them? Was he to buy them, giving the money for their purchase then and there? What, in the name of Heaven, was he to do?

Cruikshank is no hand at these delicate situations. He just stood, so he told us, with his hands full of tomatoes, as much at a loss for action as he was for words.

"They seem very good," said he, at last, "but isn't it a pity to have picked them before they were quite ripe?" And then he was for handing them back, for getting rid of them as quickly as he could.

But the old gentleman was far too wary for that. He took a step backwards. He even went so far as to thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

"No, no, you keep them," said he, "put 'em in a window, they'll ripen. But don't say anything to my sister about them. She agrees with you. She doesn't like 'em picked before they're ripe. Don't say anything to her. I only saw them this morning, and knowing you'd got a 

 Prev. P 45/182 next