A Damsel in Distress

Sherlock Holmes himself might have been misled. One can hear him

explaining the thing to Watson in one of those lightning flashes of

inductive reasoning of his. "It is the only explanation, my dear

Watson. If the lady were merely complimenting the gardener on his

rose-garden, and if her smile were merely caused by the excellent

appearance of that rose-garden, there would be an answering smile

on the face of the gardener. But, as you see, he looks morose and

gloomy."

As a matter of fact, the gardener--that is to say, the stocky,

brown-faced man in shirt sleeves and corduroy trousers who was

frowning into a can of whale-oil solution--was the Earl of

Marshmoreton, and there were two reasons for his gloom. He hated to

be interrupted while working, and, furthermore, Lady Caroline Byng

always got on his nerves, and never more so than when, as now, she

speculated on the possibility of a romance between her step-son

Reggie and his lordship's daughter Maud.

Only his intimates would have recognized in this curious

corduroy-trousered figure the seventh Earl of Marshmoreton. The

Lord Marshmoreton who made intermittent appearances in London, who

lunched among bishops at the Athenaeum Club without exciting

remark, was a correctly dressed gentleman whom no one would have

suspected of covering his sturdy legs in anything but the finest

cloth. But if you will glance at your copy of Who's Who, and turn

up the "M's", you will find in the space allotted to the Earl the

words "Hobby--Gardening". To which, in a burst of modest pride, his

lordship has added "Awarded first prize for Hybrid Teas, Temple

Flower Show, 1911". The words tell their own story.

Lord Marshmoreton was the most enthusiastic amateur gardener in a

land of enthusiastic amateur gardeners. He lived for his garden.

The love which other men expend on their nearest and dearest Lord

Marshmoreton lavished on seeds, roses and loamy soil. The hatred

which some of his order feel for Socialists and Demagogues Lord

Marshmoreton kept for roseslugs, rose-beetles and the small,

yellowish-white insect which is so depraved and sinister a

character that it goes through life with an alias--being sometimes

called a rose-hopper and sometimes a thrips. A simple soul, Lord

Marshmoreton--mild and pleasant. Yet put him among the thrips, and

he became a dealer-out of death and slaughter, a destroyer in the

class of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. Thrips feed on the

underside of rose leaves, sucking their juice and causing them to

turn yellow; and Lord Marshmoreton's views on these things were so

rigid that he would have poured whale-oil solution on his

grandmother if he had found her on the underside of one of his rose

leaves sucking its juice.