I raked away a few loose weeds while Mr. Snyder began digging holes in the rocky, hard ground. He paced out the distance between the holes so that the rose bushes would be properly spaced; then he placed the bushes in the holes, and poured the ancient dirt around their roots. While he worked he talked, letting drop occasionally a four or five syllable word that sounded affected and unnatural. "Even though I am a very well educated man, and have had several books published, I have--hic!--a few little idiosyncrasies," he confessed, darting his bright, wrinkle-surrounded eyes at me. "You're kidding!" I protested. "Surely you're too normal, too well balanced for anything like that." "No," he said seriously. "Of course I am--hic!--exceptionally well balanced, but about even me there are--oddities, shall we say?" "Yes, let's," I agreed. Flailing his arms, the little man threw himself upon one of the newly planted rose bushes, trampling it with his feet. Or so it appeared. I was about to yank him back indignantly when I realized that his tattered shoes were adroit in avoiding the bush. "I'm just stamping the--hic!--stamping the dirt down," he explained. "The roses like it better that way. Hic! They like things just so. They have their own little idiosyncrasies, you know." "Even the well-educated, well-balanced ones?" Then, afraid that sounded too flippant, I said, "But what are your idiosyncrasies?" Oliv seized a hoe from his car, leaned upon it, and said, "Look at me. I'm--hic!--the man with the hoe, stolid and stunned, brother to the--hic!--the ox." I must have looked rather vague, for he explained, "That's from one of the poems I use--hic!--to teach my journalism classes." He began chopping at the ground. "One of my peculiarities," he said, "is that I can't resist buying the bottles of things the--hic!--apothecaries sell. Those rows and rows of neatly labeled bottles on the shelves in drug stores--hic--they do something to me. I don't know what it is exactly, but practically all the money I earn doing gardening--hic--and odd jobs goes into the apothecaries' pockets. You ought to see my domicile--it's just like being in a--hic!--a drug store. Every shelf and drawer is loaded with bottles of pills and tablets and--hic!--capsules." "Well, that's--interesting," I remarked, not being able to think of a more satisfactory adjective. "Sort of a hobby." "But that isn't the sum total of my idiosyncrasies," he said, his face, under its thatch of white hair topped by his frayed cap, turning a mottled pink. He stopped, thrusting a small plant into the trench he had dug. "No, I--hic!--regret to say, that isn't all," he went on. "It's--well, it's women. I can't resist them either." I clicked my tongue sympathetically. "Lots of men are like that," I comforted him.