Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. PARADISE GARDEN _THE SATIRICAL NARRATIVE OF A GREAT EXPERIMENT_ BY GEORGE GIBBS AUTHOR OF THE YELLOW DOVE, ETC. _I have considered well his loss of time And how he cannot be a perfect man Not being tried and tutored in the world._ --TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM A. HOTTINGER GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Printed in the United States of America [Illustration: "'Love!' he sneered ... 'I thought you'd say that.'"] CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE GREAT EXPERIMENT II. JERRY III. JERRY GROWS IV. ENTER EVE V. THE MINX RETURNS VI. THE CABIN VII. JACK BALLARD TAKES CHARGE VIII. JERRY EMERGES IX. FOOT-WORK X. MARCIA XI. THE SIREN XII. INTRODUCING JIM ROBINSON XIII. UNA XIV. JERRY GOES INTO TRAINING XV. THE UNKNOWN UNMASKED XVI. THE FIGHT XVII. MARCIA RECANTS XVIII. TWO EMBASSIES XIX. THE PATH IN THE WOODS XX. REVOLT XXI. JERRY ASKS QUESTIONS XXII. THE CHIPMUNK XXIII. THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY XXIV. FEET OF CLAY XXV. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS XXVI. DRYAD AND SATYR XXVII. REVELATIONS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "'Love!' he sneered ... 'I thought you'd say that.'" "In the evenings sometimes I read while Jerry whittled" "This then was Jerry's house-party--!" "'Have pity, Jerry,' she whimpered" PARADISE GARDEN CHAPTER I THE GREAT EXPERIMENT It might be better if Jerry Benham wrote his own memoir, for no matter how veracious, this history must be more or less colored by the point of view of one irrevocably committed to an ideal, a point of view which Jerry at least would insist was warped by scholarship and stodgy by habit. But Jerry, of course, would not write it and couldn't if he would, for no man, unless lacking in sensibility, can write a true autobiography, and least of all could Jerry do it. To commit him to such a task would be much like asking an artist to paint himself into his own landscape. Jerry could have painted nothing but impressions of externals, leaving out perforce the portrait of himself which is the only thing that matters. So I, Roger Canby, bookworm, pedagogue and student of philosophy, now recite the history of the Great Experiment and what came of it.