DOCTOR SCALES HEARS A MORNING LECTURE. "Morning, Monnick," said the doctor, who had resigned himself to his fate, and had passed three days without attempting to escape from his pleasant prison. "Morning, sir," said the old gardener, touching his hat. "Sir James down yet?" "Oh yes, sir, he's been in the peach-house this last hour." "Has he? thanks," said the doctor, walking on in that direction, to hear his old friend's voice, directly after, humming away beneath the glass like some gigantic bee. "Hallo, lazybones!" cried Sir James, who was busy at work with a syringe water-shooting the various insects that had affected a lodgment amongst his peach and nectarine trees. "Lazybones; be hanged! why, it's barely five." "Well, that's late enough this weather. I love being out early." "Work of supererogation to tell me that, old fellow." "So it is, Jack, and I suppose I'm a monomaniac. Fellows at the club laugh at me. They say, here you are--with plenty of money, which is true; heaps of brains--which is not; a title and a seat in the house, openings before you to get some day in the cabinet, and you go down in the country and work like a gardener. They think I'm a fool." "Let 'em," said the doctor, grimly. "But I am a bit of a lunatic over garden matters, and country-life, Jack." "So much the better," said the doctor, lighting a cigar and beginning to walk up and down. "Go on with your squirting." "Shan't! I shall follow your bad habit." And Sir James took one of his friend's cigars and began to smoke. "Pleasure and profit together," he said; "it will kill insects." "Nice place, this," said the doctor, glancing about the large light structure, with its healthy fruit trees growing vigorously; "but I should be careful about sudden changes. Might get a cold that would affect you seriously." "Out, croaker!" cried Sir James; "I never catch cold." And he perched himself upon a pair of steps. "Going to preach?" said the doctor, "because if so I'll sit down." "Then sit, for I am, sir, a charity sermon; but there will be no collection after I have done." "Go ahead," said the doctor. "My dear guest," said Sir James, "there is nothing pleasanter than being, through your own foresight, on the right side of the hedge. The bull may bellow and snort, and run at the unfortunates who carelessly cross the dangerous meadow, but it does not hurt you, who can calmly shout to those in danger to run here or there to save themselves from horns or hoofs. In the same way how satisfactory to float at your ease when the flood comes, and to see your neighbours floundering and splashing as they struggle to bank or tree, hardly saving themselves, while you, armed as you are with that pocket. Noah's Ark of a safety-belt, philosophically think, what a pity it is that people will not take precautions against the inevitable." "What are you aiming at, Jemmy?" said the doctor.