"Ah, Monsieur," says he,--oh, yes, just like that,--"but if I had the fresh chives, the--the _fin herbes_--ah, then you should see!" "Well, can't Madame get what you need at the stores?" says I. "But at such a price!" says Leon. "And of so discouraging a quality. While, if we had but a few handfuls of good soil in some small boxes by the windows---- Come, I will show you. Here, and here, where the sun comes in the morning. I could secure them myself if you would not think them unlovely to have in view." "How about it, Vee?" I asks. "Are we too proud to grow our soup greens on the premises?" She says we ain't, so I tells Leon to breeze ahead with his hangin' garden. Course, I ain't lookin' for anything more'n a box on the ledge. But he's an ingenious old boy, Leon. With a hammer and saw and a few boxes from the grocery, he builds a rack that fits into one of the front windows; and the first thing I know, he has the space chuckful of shallow trays, and seeds planted in every one. A few days later, and the other window is blocked off similar. Also I get a bill from the florist for two bushels of dirt. Well, our front windows did look kind of odd, and our view out was pretty well barred off; but he had painted the things up neat, and he did all his waterin' and fussin' around early in the mornin', so we let it ride. When he starts in to use our bedroom windows the same way, though, I has to call him off. "See here, Professor," says I, "you ain't mistakin' this studio apartment for a New Jersey truck-farm, are you! Besides, we have to keep them windows open at night, and your green stuff is apt to get nipped." "Oh, but the night air is bad to breathe, Monsieur," says he. "Not for us," says I. "Anyway, we're used to it, so I guess you'll have to lay off this bedroom garden business." He takes away the boxes, but it's plain he's disappointed. I believe if I'd let him gone on he'd had cabbages growin' on the mantelpiece, a lettuce bed on the readin'-table, and maybe a potato patch on the fire-escape. I never knew gardenin' could be made such an indoor sport. "Poor chap!" says Vee. "He has been telling me what wonderful things he used to raise when he lived in Peronne. Isn't there some way, Torchy, that we could give him more room?" "We might rent the roof and glass it in for him," I suggests, "or get a permit to bridge over the street." "Silly!" says she, rumplin' my red hair reckless. That was about the time we was havin' some of that delayed winter weather, and it was touchin' to see Professor Battou nurse along them pale green shoots that he'd coaxed up in his window-boxes. Then it runs off warm and sunny again, just as we gets this week-end invite from Mr. Robert.