Why, then, should you complain?"
"Oh, yes, I caught it!" A horrible sneer twisted his countenance.
Schmetz fell to praying aloud. But he couldn't remember anything
save the grace before meat, so he prayed that, in a sonorous voice.
For he is a pious man.
The doctor's nose wrinkled and his lips stretched: "_Sophronisba!_"
he hissed, and, having hurled this hand-grenade, scuttled down the
ladder like a boy of ten.
Alicia sank upon the ground and rocked to and fro. For a minute I
wanted to catch her by the shoulders and shake her soundly; but
catching her eye instead, I also fell into helpless laughter.
Leaning on his spade, Schmetz stared at us, shaking his grizzled
head.
"Name of a cat!" murmured the puzzled Alsatian, and fell to
salvaging such bulbs as weren't utterly ruined. We were all busy at
this, when a head again appeared over the hedge--a big, leonine head
with a tossing mane and a tameless beard. An enormous pair of
shoulders followed, a tree-trunk of a leg was swung over, and Doctor
Richard Geddes dropped into our garden like a great cat. He strolled
over, hands in pockets, and looking down at grubbing us, asked
politely: "Making a garden?"
"Oh, no," Alicia told him sweetly, "we're laying out a chicken-run.
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