n the stick."

"Oh, I see!" I cried.

"Yes, Grant, there's a right way and a wrong way, and somehow the
natural way is generally the wrong. Never saw one tried, but I believe
if you took a savage black and told him to get up on a horse, he would
go on the wrong side, put his left foot in the stirrup, and throw his
right leg over, and come down sitting with his face to the tail.
Breakfast."

"What! so soon?" I said.

"Soon! Why, it's past eight."

I was astounded, the time had gone so quickly; and soon after I was
saying "good morning" to Mrs Solomon, and partaking of the plain meal.

"Well?" said Mrs Solomon in her cold impassive way.

Mr Solomon was so busy with a piece of cold bacon and some bread that
he did not look up, and Mrs Solomon waited patiently till he raised his
head and gave her a nod.

"I am glad," she said, giving a sigh as if she were relieved; and then
she turned to me and looked quite pleasantly at me, and taking my cup,
refilled it with coffee, and actually smiled.

"Notice the missus?" said Mr Solomon, as, after a glance at his big
silver watch, he had suddenly said "Harpusate," and led the way to the
vineries.

"Notice Mrs Brownsmith?" I said.

"Yes; see anything about her?"

"I thought she looked better this morning than she did last night. Was
she ill?"

"Yes," he said shortly. "Get them steps."

I fetched _them_ steps, and thought that a gardener might just as well
be grammatical.

He opened them out, and opening his knife, cut a few strands of matting
ready, stuck them under one of his braces, after taking off his coat,
and then climbed up to the top to tie in a long green cane of the
grape-vine.

"Hold the steps steady," he said; and then with his head in amongst the
leaves he went on talking.

"Bit queer in the head," he said slowly, and with his face averted.
"Shied at you."

I stared. His wife was not a horse, and I thought they were the only
things that shied; but I found I was wrong, for Mr Solomon went on:

"I did, too. Ezra said a lot about you. Fine young shoot this, ain't
it?"

I said it was, for it was about ten feet long and as thick as my finger,
and it seemed wonderful that it should have grown like that in a few
months; but all the time my cheeks were tingling as I wondered what Old
Brownsmith had said about me.

"Sounded all right, but it's risky to take a boy into your house when
you are comfortable without, you see."

I felt ashamed an