ion. "Wot would it cost if I
set about you?" he demanded, huskily.

"Two months," said Mr. Evans, smiling serenely; "p'r'aps three."

Mr. Grummit hesitated and his fists clenched nervously. The constable,
lounging against his door-post, surveyed him with a dispassionate smile.
"That would be besides what you'd get from me," he said, softly.

"Come out in the road," said Mr. Grummit, with sudden violence.

"It's agin the rules," said Mr. Evans; "sorry I can't. Why not go and
ask your wife's brother to oblige you?"

He went in laughing and closed the door, and Mr. Grummit, after a
frenzied outburst, proceeded on his way, returning the smiles of such
acquaintances as he passed with an icy stare or a strongly-worded offer
to make them laugh the other side of their face. The rest of the day he
spent in working so hard that he had no time to reply to the anxious
inquiries of his fellow-workmen.

He came home at night glum and silent, the hardship of not being able to
give Mr. Evans his deserts without incurring hard labour having weighed
on his spirits all day. To avoid the annoyance of the piano next door,
which was slowly and reluctantly yielding up "_The Last Rose of Summer_"
note by note, he went out at the back, and the first thing he saw was Mr.
Evans mending his path with tins and other bric-a-brac.

"Nothing like it," said the constable, looking up. "Your missus gave 'em
to us this morning. A little gravel on top, and there you are."

He turned whistling to his work again, and the other, after endeavouring
in vain to frame a suitable reply, took a seat on an inverted wash-tub
and lit his pipe. His one hope was that Constable Evans was going to try
and cultivate a garden.

The hope was realized a few days later, and Mr. Grummit at the back
window sat gloating over a dozen fine geraniums, some lobelias and
calceolarias, which decorated the constable's plot of ground. He could
not sleep for thinking of them.

He rose early the next morning, and, after remarking to Mrs. Grummit that
Mr. Evans's flowers looked as though they wanted rain, went off to his
work. The cloud which had been on his spirits for some time had lifted,
and he whistled as he walked. The sight of flowers in front windows
added to his good humour.

He was still in good spirits when he left off work that afternoon, but
some slight hesitation about returning home sent him to the Brick-layers'
firms instead. He stayed there until clo