Christmas. We paid twopence a week into that for pretty
near ten months, and then Herbert went back to town agin, and all we
'ear of 'im, through his sister, is that he's still there and doing
well, and don't know when he'll be back.

"But the artfullest and worst man in this place--and that's saying a
good deal, mind you--is Bob Pretty. Deep is no word for 'im. There's no
way of being up to 'im. It's through 'im that we lost our Flower Show;
and, if you'd like to 'ear the rights o' that, I don't suppose there's
anybody in this place as knows as much about it as I do--barring Bob
hisself that is, but 'e wouldn't tell it to you as plain as I can.

"We'd only 'ad the Flower Show one year, and little anybody thought
that the next one was to be the last. The first year you might smell the
place a mile off in the summer, and on the day of the show people came
from a long way round, and brought money to spend at the Cauliflower and
other places.

"It was started just after we got our new parson, and Mrs. Pawlett, the
parson's wife, 'is name being Pawlett, thought as she'd encourage men to
love their 'omes and be better 'usbands by giving a prize every year for
the best cottage garden. Three pounds was the prize, and a metal tea-pot
with writing on it.

"As I said, we only 'ad it two years. The fust year the garden as got it
was a picter, and Bill Chambers, 'im as won the prize, used to say as
'e was out o' pocket by it, taking 'is time and the money 'e spent on
flowers. Not as we believed that, you understand, 'specially as Bill did
'is very best to get it the next year, too. 'E didn't get it, and though
p'r'aps most of us was glad 'e didn't, we was all very surprised at the
way it turned out in the end.

"The Flower Show was to be 'eld on the 5th o' July, just as a'most
everything about here was at its best. On the 15th of June Bill
Chambers's garden seemed to be leading, but Peter Smith and Joe
Gubbins and Sam Jones and Henery Walker was almost as good, and it was
understood that more than one of 'em had got a surprise which they'd
produce at the last moment, too late for the others to copy. We used to
sit up here of an evening at this Cauliflower public-house and put money
on it. I put mine on Henery Walker, and the time I spent in 'is garden
'elping 'im is a sin and a shame to think of.

"Of course some of 'em used to make fun of it, and Bob Pretty was the
worst of 'em all. He was always a lazy, good-for-nothing man