"All that day he toiled at his lawn, and by the evening there was a patch about three feet square that looked like a fragment of a ploughed field. On this he sprinkled grass seed and fortified it with wire entanglements to keep out the birds. The next morning he was at it again, and so he continued for three whole weeks. At the end of that time the disease had taken a firm hold of him. He had managed to clear most of his plot, but only the finest grass would satisfy him now; he had begun to root up the coarser quality and the blades that didn't seem to him to be quite the right shade. He worked incessantly, and his wife had to bring his meals out to him. He even attempted to sleep out there in a hammock, so that he could start the first thing in the morning. He had an idea that the weeds would be rooted up more readily if he could catch them asleep. But it rained the first night he tried, and that put him off, because he knew that if his health broke down the dandelions would get the upper hand. He became so strange at last that one day his wife sent round and begged me to come and see him." "Did you tell him one of your stories?" asked Henry. "I found him in the garden on his knees stabbing at a plantain with a corkscrew. He had marked the whole place out in squares like a chess-board, each square representing a day's work and a pound of grass seed sown. The word had been passed round that free meals were going at Pilning's, and every sparrow in the district was there. They seemed to appreciate the system of wire entanglements: it showed them where to look for seeds. "I could see at a glance that Pilning was in a bad way. He spoke cheerfully enough, but there was a nasty look in his eyes. I tried to lead him off gradually to safer topics by interesting him in the less perilous delights of flower-growing. I asked after his gerania and spoke with admiration of his aspidistra and his jasponyx...." "Rot!" said Henry. "That's a mineral." "Sorry--my fault. It's such a jolly word, and I didn't think you'd know any better.... But it was all in vain; he would talk of nothing but grass and weeds. I tried to comfort his wife as I left, but my heart was very heavy. That night, Henry, the blow fell! They managed to lure Pilning in to dinner when it got dusk, but his mind was wandering a lot. Finally he broke down completely, and made a desperate assault with a toothpick on the baby's scalp. His wife fetched one of the neighbours to sit on his head while she went for the doctor; but it was too late. His reason had become utterly unhinged. There was nothing for it but to put him away in a home, and there he has remained for five long years.