takes his revenge by ostentatiously offering me a Celebro when
I call on him."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII.

GILRAY'S FLOWER-POT.

I charge Gilray's unreasonableness to his ignoble passion for
cigarettes; and the story of his flower-pot has therefore an obvious
moral. The want of dignity he displayed about that flower-pot, on his
return to London, would have made any one sorry for him. I had my own
work to look after, and really could not be tending his chrysanthemum
all day. After he came back, however, there was no reasoning with him,
and I admit that I never did water his plant, though always intending
to do so.

The great mistake was in not leaving the flower-pot in charge of William
John. No doubt I readily promised to attend to it, but Gilray deceived
me by speaking as if the watering of a plant was the merest pastime. He
had to leave London for a short provincial tour, and, as I see now, took
advantage of my good nature.

As Gilray had owned his flower-pot for several months, during which time
(I take him at his word) he had watered it daily, he must have known
he was misleading me. He said that you got into the way of watering
a flower-pot regularly just as you wind up your watch. That certainly
is not the case. I always wind up my watch, and I never watered the
flower-pot. Of course, if I had been living in Gilray's rooms with the
thing always before my eyes I might have done so. I proposed to take it
into my chambers at the time, but he would not hear of that. Why? How
Gilray came by this chrysanthemum I do not inquire; but whether, in the
circumstances, he should not have made a clean breast of it to me is
another matter. Undoubtedly it was an unusual thing to put a man to
the trouble of watering a chrysanthemum daily without giving him its
history. My own belief has always been that he got it in exchange for a
pair of boots and his old dressing-gown. He hints that it was a present;
but, as one who knows him well, I may say that he is the last person a
lady would be likely to give a chrysanthemum to. Besides, if he was so
proud of the plant he should have stayed at home and watered it himself.

[Illustration]

He says that I never meant to water it, which is not only a mistake, but
unkind. My plan was to run downstairs immediately after dinner every
evening and give it a thorough watering. One thing or another, however,
came in the way. I often remembered about the chrysa