"You bet there will be. There's a dozen bushes over yond. By the way, Gert, you're comin' to the show to-morrow week." Miss Preston, for all her enthusiasm for roses, was not sure that she could get to the show. But Josiah informed her that she would _have_ to come. And he enforced his command by taking a leather case from his breast pocket and producing a small blue card on which was printed: BLACKHAMPTON AND DISTRICT ROSE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT, ALDERMAN JOSIAH MUNT J.P. The twenty-seventh annual Show will be held in the Jubilee Park on Tuesday, August the Fourth. Prizes will be presented at six o'clock to successful competitors by Mrs. Alderman Munt. The Blackhampton Prize Brass Band will be in attendance. Dancing in the evening, weather permitting. Admission one shilling. "That'll get you in, Gert." The card was placed in her hand. "Come and stand by Maria and keep her up to it." Had Maria dared she would have groaned dismally. As it was she had to be content with a slight gesture of dismay. "You see it'll be a bit o' practice for her. In 1916--the year after next--she'll be the Mayoress." The lady in puce silk shuddered audibly. VI In the process of time the clock on the drawing-room chimneypiece chimed six and Josiah "stepped round" to Lawyer Mossop's. That celebrity lived at The Gables, the next house but one along The Rise. Outwardly a more modest dwelling than Strathfieldsaye, it was less modern in style, more reticent, more compact. As Josiah walked up the drive he noted with approval its well kept appearance and its fine display of rhododendrons, phlox, delphiniums, purple irises and many other things that spoke to him. He was a genuine lover of flowers. Mr. Munt's pressure of the electric button was answered by a manservant in a starched shirt and a neat black cutaway. The visitor noted him carefully as he noted everything. "I wonder what he pays a month for that jockey!" was the form the memorandum took on the tablets of his mind. "Mr. Mossop in?" "If you'll come this way I'll inquire, sir." Josiah was led across a square-tiled hall, covered in the center by a Persian rug, into a room delightfully cool, with a large window in a western angle opening on to a pergola ablaze with roses, along which the westering sun streamed amazingly. "What name, sir?" "Hey?" Josiah frowned. As if there was a man, woman or child in Blackhampton who didn't know him! Still, it was good style. "Munt--Mr. Munt." "Thank you, sir!" The manservant bowed and withdrew.