Inglewood was sure of the place;
he had passed it twenty times in his constitutionals on the bicycle;
he had always dimly felt it was a place where something might occur.
But it gave him quite a shiver to feel that the face of his
frightful friend or enemy Smith might at any time have appeared
over the garden bushes above. The gardener's account,
unlike the curate's, was quite free from decorative adjectives,
however many he may have uttered privately when writing it.
He simply said that on a particular morning Mr. Smith came out
and began to play about with a rake, as he often did. Sometimes he
would tickle the nose of his eldest child (he had two children);
sometimes he would hook the rake on to the branch of a tree,
and hoist himself up with horrible gymnastic jerks, like those of
a giant frog in its final agony. Never, apparently, did he think
of putting the rake to any of its proper uses, and the gardener,
in consequence, treated his actions with coldness and brevity.
But the gardener was certain that on one particular morning in October he
(the gardener) had come round the corner of the house carrying
the hose, had seen Mr. Smith standing on the lawn in a striped
red and white jacket (which might have been his smoking-jacket,
but was quite as like a part of his pyjamas), and had heard him then
and there call out to his wife, who was looking out of the bedroom
window on to the garden, these decisive and very loud expressions--
"I won't stay here any longer.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210