fully mine.

She'd made the stuff and deceived me by an unscrupulously worded
advertisement, now, no longer interested, she asked airily if further
effort were essential. Who wouldnt be indignant? And to cap it all she
suddenly ejaculated, "Can't dawdle around here all day" and after
snatching up a handful of the scythings, she left, rolling her large
body from side to side, galloping her untidy hair up and down over her
neck as she took rapid strides. Evidently the attractions of her messy
kitchen were more to her taste than the wholesome air of outdoors.
Pottering around, producing another mare's nest and eventually, I
suppose, getting another victim....

_7._ But I couldnt leave so cavalierly. Every leaf, stem, and blade of
the cancerous grass held me in somewhat the same way Miss Francis'
intense eyes did. It wasnt an aesthetic or morbid attraction--its basis
was strictly practical. If it could have been controlled--if only the
growth could be induced on a modified and proper scale--what a product!
A fury of frustration rocked my customary calm....

The stretch and retraction of the mower's arms, the swift, bright
curving as the scythe cut deeper, fascinated me. An unscrupulous
man--just as a whimsical thought--might go about in the night
inoculating lawns surreptitiously and appear with a crew next day to
offer his services in cutting them. Just goes to show how easy it is to
make dishonest speculations ... but of course such things don't pay in
the long run....

The lush area was being reduced, but perhaps not with the same rapidity
as at first when Mr Barelli was at the top of enthusiastic--if the
adjective was applicable--vigor. Oftener and oftener and oftener he
paused to sharpen his implement and I thought the cropped shocks were
becoming smaller and smaller. As the movement of the scythe swept the
guillotined grass backward, the trailing stolons entangled themselves
with the uncut stand, pulling the sheaves out of place and making the
stacks ragged and inadequate looking.

Behind me a cocky voice asked, "What's cooking around here, chum?"

I turned round to a young man, thin as a bamboo pole, elegantly
tailored, who yawned to advertise gold inlays. I explained while he
looked skeptical, bored and knowing simultaneously. "Who would tha
flummox, bah goom?" he inquired.

"Ay?"

He took a pack of playingcards from his pocket and riffled them
expertly. "Who you kidding, bud?" he translated.

"No one.