"Yes, and she knows as much about the business end as he does, you may be sure," said the Frenchman as they went through a door at the back of the shop, emerging, not, as the American expected, into a storeroom, but into an attractive parlor. They passed through the salon, into an exquisitely kept little dining-room and out into a walled garden which made the American pass his hand over his eyes and look again. While their host was installing them at the little round green iron table under a trellis overgrown by a magnificent grapevine, Mr. Hale's eyes traveled from one point to another of the small paradise before him. It could not have been more than a hundred feet wide and three hundred long, but like a fabled spot in the "Arabian Nights" it shone resplendent with incredible riches. The stone walls, ten feet high, were carpeted to the top with a mantle of glistening green leaves, among which hung peaches and pears, glorious to the view, rank on rank, such fruit as the American had never thought could exist. On each side of the graveled path down the center were flowering plants, like great bouquets each. Back of them were more fruit-trees, none more than eight feet tall, bearing each a dozen or more amazing apples, as brightly colored as the flowers. Around the trees were vegetables, carrots, salads, cabbages, every specimen as floridly full-leafed and perfect as the incredible pictures Mr. Hale had seen, and disbelieved in, on the front of seed catalogues. From the other end of the garden, drenched in sunshine, came the humming of bees. Above their heads a climbing rose covering the end of the house sent down a clear, delicate perfume from its hundred flowers. The American's eyes came back from their inspection of all this and rested with a new expression on his rather snuffy, rather stout and undistinguished host. "Will you please tell Monsieur Réquine from me," he said to his companion, "that I never saw such a garden in my life?" Monsieur Réquine waved the tribute away with sincere humility. "Oh, it's nothing compared to those all about me. I can't give it the time I would like to. Later on, when I am retired, and my son has the business ..." his gesture seemed to indicate wider horizons of horticultural excellence before which the American's imagination recoiled breathless. The straw-colored liqueur had been poured out into the glasses, which were, so Mr. Hale noticed, of extremely fine and delicate workmanship ... "and his wife tending shop!" The two Frenchmen drank with ceremonious bowings and murmured salutations. Mr. Hale consumed his fiery draught silently but with a not ungraceful self-possession. He was at his ease with all kinds of ways of taking a drink. Then, drawing a long breath, taking off his hat and putting his elbows on the table, he began to expound and the French official with him to translate. The bees hummed a queer, unsuitable accompaniment to his resonant, forceful staccato.