His garden was literally stuffed with rare and curious things. He admitted that some of them were not beautiful; but they were rare and in some cases he doubted if anybody else in Kent had them. It never occurred to him that nobody else in Kent might want them. Everything was beautifully labelled with metal labels, and many of the rarer and more precious alpine plants had zinc guards put round them to keep away garden pests, such as slugs and snails. I couldn’t believe that a snail would have dared to show his face in that garden; but Mr. Bent said he always had to be fighting them, and that sometimes they conquered and managed to scale a zinc guard and devour a small choice alpine in a single night! He had most beautiful flowers to show me; or rather he let me walk up and down among them while he gardened. It was very interesting to see the sure professional touch of Mr. Bent. He never hesitated or doubted what to do. He knew exactly what to cut off a plant, or how much water to give it, or how to tie up a trailer. He planted out a few seedling zinnias to show me. Then he watered them in and removed the seed boxes, and all was neat and tidy in a moment. He handled long and difficult Latin names with the consummate ease of a native, and he showed me piles of gardeners’ catalogues. Once he had raised a begonia from seed, which they accepted at Kew Gardens, and the Director of Kew gave him something in exchange for his hothouse. “It died,” said Mr. Bent, “and that through no fault of mine; but the distinction and the compliment have not died and never will.” He was a member of the R.H.S., or Royal Horticultural Society, and he had shown a plant now and again at their meetings, but without any honour falling to it. Before supper I was allowed to help Mr. Bent with a garden hose on the grass; and while we were at work a man from next-door looked over the wall and wished Mr. Bent “good-evening” and asked for some advice. Seeing me, he told me the story of Mr. Bent’s little boy and the cocoanut chips for the third time; then he explained to Mr. Bent that his sweet peas were curling up rather oddly and said that he would thank him to go and have a look at them. “Good Lord, the peas a failure!” said Mr. Bent; then with his usual kindness he instantly hastened to see if anything could be done. When he returned I could see that he was troubled. “His peas have failed,” he said. “It is one of those disasters that come upon even good gardeners sometimes. Not that Mason is a good gardener, or, in fact, a gardener at all in the real sense. I don’t know what has happened to his peas—the trouble is below ground and might be one of five different things; but all is over with the peas. I have told him to give up hope about them. I may be able to spare him some annuals later.”