a good display of enthusiasm, and earn
the hypocritical admiration of your wife. After digging for half-an-hour
or so, get her to rub your back with any of the backache cures. From
that moment you will have no further need for the spade.

A barrow is about the only other thing needed; anyhow, it is almost a
necessity for wheeling cases of whisky up to the house. A rake is useful
when your terrier dog has bailed up a cat, and will not attack it until
the cat is made to run.

Talking of terrier dogs, an acquaintance of ours has a dog that does all
his gardening. The dog is a small elderly terrier with a failing memory.
As soon as the terrier has planted a bone in the garden the owner slips
over, digs it up and takes it away. When that terrier goes back and
finds the bone gone, he distrusts his memory, and begins to think that
perhaps he has made a mistake, and has dug in the wrong place; so he
sets to work, and digs patiently all over the garden, turning over acres
of soil in the course of his search. This saves his master a lot of
backache.

The sensible amateur gardener, then, will not attempt to fight with
Nature but will fall in with her views. What more pleasant than to get
out of bed at 11.30 on a Sunday morning; to look out of your window at
a lawn waving with the feathery plumes of Parramatta grass, and to see
beyond it the churchyard geranium flourishing side by side with the
plumbago and the Port Jackson fig?

The garden gate blows open, and the local commando of goats, headed by
an aged and fragrant patriarch, locally known as De Wet, rushes in; but
their teeth will barely bite through the wiry stalks of the Parramatta
grass, and the plumbago and the figtree fail to attract them, and
before long they stand on one another's shoulders, scale the fence, and
disappear into the next-door garden, where a fanatic is trying to grow
show roses.

After the last goat has scaled your neighbour's fence, and only De Wet
is left, your little dog discovers him. De Wet beats a hurried retreat,
apparently at full speed, with the dog exactly one foot behind him in
frantic pursuit. We say apparently at full speed, because experience has
taught that De Wet can run as fast as a greyhound when he likes; but
he never exerts himself to go faster than is necessary to keep just in
front of whatever dog is after him.

Hearing the scrimmage, your neighbour comes on to his verandah, and sees
the chase going down the street.

"Ha! t