“Oh, in case it’s a secret, I’ve no more to say; for I never meddle with any man’s secrets that he does not choose to trust me with. But I wish, neighbour Grant, you would put down that book. You are always poring over some book or another when a man comes to see you, which is not, according to my notions (being a plain, _unlarned_ Englishman bred and born), so civil and neighbourly as might be.” Mr. Grant hastily shut his book, but remarked, with a shrewd glance at his son, that it was in that book he found his Brobdingnag raspberries. “You are pleased to be pleasant upon them that have not the luck to be as book-_larned_ as yourself, Mr. Grant; but I take it, being only a plain spoken Englishman, as I observed afore, that one is to the full as like to find a raspberry in one’s garden as in one’s book, Mr. Grant.” Grant, observing that his neighbour spoke rather in a surly tone, did not contradict him; being well versed in the Bible, he knew that “A soft word turneth away wrath,” and he answered, in a good humoured voice, “I hear, neighbour Oakly, you are likely to make a great deal of money of your nursery this year. Here’s to the health of you and yours, not forgetting the seedling larches, which I see are coming on finely.” “Thank ye, neighbour, kindly; the larches are coming on tolerably well, that’s certain; and here’s to your good health, Mr. Grant—you and yours, not forgetting your, what dye call ’em raspberries”—(_drinks_)—and, after a pause, resumes, “I’m not apt to be a beggar, neighbour, but if you could give me—” Here Mr. Oakly was interrupted by the entrance of some strangers, and he did finish making his request—Mr. Oakly was not, as he said of himself, apt to ask favours, and nothing but Grant’s cordiality could have conquered his prejudices, so far as to tempt him to ask a favour from a Scotchman. He was going to have asked for some of the Brobdingnag raspberry-plants. The next day the thought of the raspberry-plants recurred to his memory, but being a bashful man, he did not like to go himself on purpose to make his request, and he desired his wife, who was just setting out to market, to call at Grant’s gate, and, if he was at work in his garden, to ask him for a few plants of his raspberries. The answer which Oakly’s wife brought to him was that Mr. Grant had not a raspberry-plant in the world to give him, and that if he had ever so many, he would not give one away, except to his own son.