thing will rise
as soon as the blockade begins in earnest."

"No, the prices of those things have not gone up much; but fruit is
three times the price it was, a fortnight ago, and chickens and
eggs are double, and vegetables are hardly to be bought."

"That is the worst of it," the doctor said. "It's the vegetables
that I am thinking of."

"Well, we can do without vegetables," Mrs. O'Halloran laughed, "as
long as we have plenty of bread."

"It is just that you can't do. You see, we shall be cut off from
Tangier--maybe tomorrow, maybe a fortnight hence--but we shall be
cut off. A ship may run in sometimes, at night, but you can't count
upon that; and it is salt meat that we are going to live upon and,
if you live on salt meat, you have got to have vegetables or fruit
to keep you in health.

"Now, I tell you what I should do, Gerald, and I am not joking with
you. In the first place, I would make an arrangement with the
people downstairs, and I would hire their garden from them. I don't
suppose they would want much for it, for they make no use of it,
except to grow a few flowers. Then I would go down the town, and I
would buy up all the chickens I could get. There are plenty of them
to be picked up, if you look about for them, for most of the people
who have got a bit of ground keep a few fowls. Get a hundred of
them, if you can, and turn them into the garden. Buy up twenty
sacks, if you like, of damaged biscuits. You can get them for an
old song. The commissariat have been clearing out their stores, and
there are a lot of damaged biscuits to be sold, by auction,
tomorrow. You would get twenty sacks for a few shillings.

"That way you will get a good supply of eggs, if the siege lasts
ever so long; and you can fence off a bit of the garden, and raise
fowls there. That will give you a supply of fresh meat, and any
eggs and poultry you can't eat yourselves you can sell for big
prices. You could get a chicken, three weeks ago, at threepence.
Never mind if you have to pay a shilling for them, now; they will
be worth five shillings, before long.

"If you can rent another bit of garden, anywhere near, I would take
it. If not, I would hire three or four men to collect earth, and
bring it up here. This is a good, big place; I suppose it is thirty
feet by sixty. Well, I would just leave a path from the door,
there, up to this end; and a spare place, here, for your chairs;
and I would cover the rest of it with earth, nine