empty brown bed in the

He took up his position in the shadow of a fir-tree with his back tothe house. From here he could see the long garden. He was fond of hisgarden, and spent what few moments he could spare from work and gamespottering about it. He had his views as to what the ideal gardenshould be, and he hoped in time to tinker his own three acres up tothe desired standard. At present there remained much to be done. Whynot, for instance, take away those laurels at the end of the lawn, andhave a flower-bed there instead? Laurels lasted all the year round,true, whereas flowers died and left an empty brown bed in the winter,but then laurels were nothing much to look at at any time, and agarden always had a beastly appearance in winter, whatever you did toit. Much better have flowers, and get a decent show for one's money insummer at any rate. 　　The problem of the bed at the end of the lawn occupied his completeattention for more than a quarter of an hour, at the end of whichperiod he discovered that his pipe had gone out. 　　He was just feeling for his matches to relight it when Wyatt droppedwith a slight thud into his favourite herbaceous border. 　　The surprise, and the agony of feeling that large boots were tramplingamong his treasures kept him transfixed for just the length of timenecessary for Wyatt to cross the garden and climb the opposite wall. 　　As he dropped into the lane, Mr. Appleby recovered himselfsufficiently to emit a sort of strangled croak, but the sound was tooslight to reach Wyatt. That reveller was walking down the Wrykyn roadbefore Mr. Appleby had left his chair. 　　It is an interesting point that it was the gardener rather than theschoolmaster in Mr. Appleby that first awoke to action. It was not theidea of a boy breaking out of his house at night that occurred to himfirst as particularly heinous; it was the fact that the boy had brokenout _via_ his herbaceous border. In four strides he was on thescene of the outrage, examining, on hands and knees, with the aid ofthe moonlight, the extent of the damage done.