in the temper of two strange dogs, coupled up
together for the first time in their lives by the same chain.

Asking for my lady, and hearing that she was in one of the
conservatories, we went round to the gardens at the back, and sent a
servant to seek her. While we were waiting, Sergeant Cuff looked
through the evergreen arch on our left, spied out our rosery, and walked
straight in, with the first appearance of anything like interest that he
had shown yet. To the gardener's astonishment, and to my disgust,
this celebrated policeman proved to be quite a mine of learning on the
trumpery subject of rose-gardens.

"Ah, you've got the right exposure here to the south and sou'-west,"
says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak
of pleasure in his melancholy voice. "This is the shape for a
rosery--nothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks
between all the beds. But they oughtn't to be gravel walks like these.
Grass, Mr. Gardener--grass walks between your roses; gravel's too hard
for them. That's a sweet pretty bed of white roses and blush roses. They
always mix well together, don't they? Here's the white musk rose, Mr.
Betteredge--our old English rose holding up its head along with the best
and the newest of them. Pretty dear!" says the Sergeant, fondling
the Musk Rose with his lanky fingers, and speaking to it as if he was
speaking to a child.

This was a nice sort of man to recover Miss Rachel's Diamond, and to
find out the thief who stole it!

"You seem to be fond of roses, Sergeant?" I remarked.

"I haven't much time to be fond of anything," says Sergeant Cuff. "But
when I _have_ a moment's fondness to bestow, most times, Mr. Betteredge,
the roses get it. I began my life among them in my father's nursery
garden, and I shall end my life among them, if I can. Yes. One of these
days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and try my hand
at growing roses. There will be grass walks, Mr. Gardener, between my
beds," says the Sergeant, on whose mind the gravel paths of our rosery
seemed to dwell unpleasantly.

"It seems an odd taste, sir," I ventured to say, "for a man in your line
of life."

"If you will look about you (which most people won't do)," says Sergeant
Cuff, "you will see that the nature of a man's tastes is, most times, as
opposite as possible to the nature of a man's business. Show me any two
things more opposite one from the other than a rose and a thief; a