Griffins and travelling M.P.s are liable to suppose that the _Malee_ is a
gardener, and _ergo_ that you keep him to attend to your garden. This is
an error. He is a gardener, of course, but the primary use of him is to
produce flowers for your table, and you need him most when you have no
garden. A high-class _Malee_ of good family and connections is quite
independent of a garden. It seems necessary, however, that your
neighbours should have gardens.
The highest branch of the _Malee’s_ art is the making of nosegays, from
the little “buttonhole,” which is equivalent to a cough on occasions when
_baksheesh_ seems possible, to the great valedictory or Christmas
bouquet. The manner of making these is as follows. First you gather
your flowers, cutting the stalks as short as possible, and tie each one
firmly to an artificial stalk of thin bamboo. Then you select some large
and striking flower for a centre, and range the rest round it in rings of
beautiful colours. If your bull’s eye is a sunflower, then you may gird
it with a broad belt of red roses. Yellow marigolds may follow, then
another ring of red roses, then lilac bougainvillea, then something blue,
after which you may have a circle of white jasmine, and so on. Finally,
you fringe the whole with green leaves, bind it together with pack
thread, and tie it to the end of a short stick. If the odour of rose,
jasmine, chumpa, oleander, etc., is not sufficient, you can mix a good
quantity of mignonette with the leaves on the outside, but, in any case,
it is best to sprinkle the whole profusely with rose water. This will
make a bouquet fit to present to a Commissioner.
[Picture: The highest style of art]
THE BHEESTEE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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