ickly, but ended by
becoming prodigious and absolutely uneatable. No matter--Pecuchet was
content with being the possessor of a monstrosity!

Then he tried his hand at what he regarded as the _summum_ of art--the
growing of melons.

He sowed many varieties of seed in plates filled with vegetable mould,
which he deposited in the soil of the bed. Then he raised another bed,
and when it had put forth its virgin buddings he transplanted the best
of them, putting bell-glasses over them. He made all the cuttings in
accordance with the precepts of _The Good Gardener_. He treated the
flowers tenderly; he let the fruits grow in a tangle, and then selected
one on either arm, removed the others, and, as soon as they were as
large as nuts, he slipped a little board around their rind to prevent
them from rotting by contact with dung. He heated them, gave them air,
swept off the mist from the bell-glasses with his pocket-handkerchief,
and, if he saw lowering clouds, he quickly brought out straw mattings to
protect them.

He did not sleep at night on account of them. Many times he even got up
out of bed, and, putting on his boots without stockings, shivering in
his shirt, he traversed the entire garden to throw his own counterpane
over his hotbed frames.

The melons ripened. Bouvard grinned when he saw the first of them. The
second was no better; neither was the third. For each of them Pecuchet
found a fresh excuse, down to the very last, which he threw out of the
window, declaring that he could not understand it at all.

The fact was, he had planted some things beside others of a different
species; and so the sweet melons got mixed up with the kitchen-garden
melons, the big Portugal with the Grand Mogul variety; and this anarchy
was completed by the proximity of the tomatoes--the result being
abominable hybrids that had the taste of pumpkins.

Then Pecuchet devoted his attention to the flowers. He wrote to
Dumouchel to get shrubs with seeds for him, purchased a stock of heath
soil, and set to work resolutely.

But he planted passion-flowers in the shade and pansies in the sun,
covered the hyacinths with dung, watered the lilies near their blossoms,
tried to stimulate the fuchsias with glue, and actually roasted a
pomegranate by exposing it to the heat of the kitchen fire.

When the weather got cold, he screened the eglantines under domes of
strong paper which had been lubricated with a candle. They looked like
sugarloaves h