CHAPTER XXXIV.
CAULIFLOWERS "They cocks and hens," Mr.Swipes used to say in the earlier days of his empire--"bless you, my lord, they cocks and hens knows a good bit of gardening as well as I do.

They calls one another, and they comes to see it, and they puts their heads to one side and talks about it, and they say to one another, 'Must be something good there, or he wouldn't have made it so bootiful'; and then up go their combs, and they tear away into it, like a passel of Scotchmen at a scratching-match.

If your lordship won't put a lock on the door, you will never taste a bit of good vegetable." Admiral Darling was at length persuaded to allow Mr.Swipes the privilege of locking himself in the kitchen-garden; and then, for the purpose of getting at him, a bell was put in the gable of the tool-house, with a long handle hanging outside the door in the courtyard towards the kitchen.

Thus he was able to rest from his labours, without incurring unjust reproach; and gradually as he declined, with increasing decision, to answer the bell when it rang, according to the highest laws of nature it left off ringing altogether.

So Mr.Swipes in the walled kitchen-garden sought peace and ensued it.
One quiet November afternoon, when the disappearance of Dan Tugwell had been talked out and done with, a sad mishap befell this gardener, during the performance, or, to speak more correctly, the contemplation of his work.