OLD LADY OF THREADNEEDLE STREET. "YOU'VE GOT YOURSELVES INTO A NICE MESS WITH YOUR PRECIOUS '_SPECULATION_!' WELL--I'LL HELP YOU OUT OF IT,--_FOR THIS ONCE!!_" * * * * * [Illustration: FANCY SKETCH FOR NOVEMBER 5. MAGISTRATE LETTING OFF A CRACKER WITH A LITTLE CAUTION.] * * * * * HOW IT'S DONE. (_A HANDBOOK TO HONESTY._) NO. IV.--THE GRAND OLD (JOBBING) GARDENER. SCENE--_the Garden of a modest Suburban Villa. Present, Simple Citizen, with budding horticultural ambitions, and Jobbing Gardener, "highly recommended" for skill and low charges. The latter is a grizzled personage, very bowed as to back, and baggy as to breeches, but in his manner combining oracular "knowingness" and deferential plausibility in a remarkable degree._ _Simple Citizen_. You see SMUGGINS, things are a little bit in the rough here, at present. _Grand Old Gardener_. Ah, you may well say that, Sir! Bin allowed to run to rack _and_ ruin, this here pooty bit o' garding has. Want a lot o' clearing, scurryfunging, and topping and lopping, afore it'll look anythink like. But it's got the making of a puffeck parrydise in it, a puffeck parrydise it has--_with_ my adwice. _S.C._ Glad to hear you say so, SMUGGINS. Now what I propose is-- _G.O.G._ (_laying a horny hand on S.C.'s coat-sleeve_). If you'll ascuse me, Sir, I'll jest give yer _my_ ideas. It'll save time. (_Lays down artfully the lines of a plan involving radical alteration of paths, and lawns, and beds, shifting of shrubs, cutting down of trees, rooting up of trailers, and what he calls "toppin' an' loppin'" to a tremendous extent._) _Then_, Sir, you'll 'ave a bit o' garding as'll be the pride o' yer eye, and a tidy bit o' profit into the bargain, or I don't know my bizness. An' I _oughter_ too, seeing as I wos 'ed gardener to the Dook of FITZ-FUZZ for close on twenty year, afore the rheumaticks took me like wot you see. Hu-a-a-h!!! _S.C._ Yes; but, SMUGGINS, all these alterations will run into time and--expense, I'm afraid. _G.O.G._ (_confidentially)._ You leave that to _me_, Sir! The fust expense'll be the biggest, and a saving in the long run, take _my_ word. And then you _will_ 'ave a garding, _you_ will, one as that 'ere muddled up bit o' greenery nex door won't be a patch on it, for all he's so proud of it.(_Gets Simple Citizen into his clutches, and works him to his will_.) SCENE II.--_The Same, six months later in the Season._ _S.C._ (_returning from a fortnight's absence_). What, SMUGGINS, still at it? And--eh--by Jove, what _have_ you been up to? Why I hardly know the place again! _G.O.G._ (_complacently_). I should 'ope not, Sir It _is_ a bit different from when you last saw it, I flatter myself. Fact it is a garding, now. _Then_ it wos a wildernidge! _S.C._ Yes, but SMUGGINS, hang it all, you've cut almost every bit of greenery away!