I Look Round

"It's lovely," I cried. "Oh! Mr Solomon, what a garden!"

"Mr Brownsmith, not Mr Solomon," he said rather gruffly; and I
apologised and remembered; but I must go on calling him Mr Solomon to
distinguish him from my older friend.

"I never saw such a place," I added; "and it's kept so well."

"Tidyish--pretty tidy," he said coldly. "Not enough hands. Only nine
and me--and you--but we do our best."

"Why, it's perfection!" I cried.

"No it ain't," he said gruffly. "Too much glass. Takes a deal o' time.
I shall make you a glass boy mostly."

"Make me--a what, sir?"

"Glass boy. You'll see."

I said "Oh," and began to understand.

"Was it like this when you came?" I said.

I was very glad I said it, for Mr Solomon's mouth twitched, then his
eyes closed, and there were pleasant wrinkles all over his face, while
he shook himself all over, and made a sound, or series of sounds, as if
he were trying to bray like a donkey. I thought he was at first, but it
was his way of laughing, and he pulled himself up short directly and
looked quite severe as he smoothed the wrinkles out of his face as if it
were a bed, and he had been using a rake.

"Not a bit," he said. "Twenty years ago. Bit of garden to the house
with the big trees and cedars. All the rest fields and a great
up-and-down gravel pit."

"And you made it like this?" I cried with animation.