Francis Cowley Burnand

“ Dinner finished, the pipe smoked, my father led the way down the garden-walk. He was enjoying himself immensely. Tibbs began to think of all the persons to whom he had told the excellent story of Lorquison and the Herrings, and repented that he had not given more of his time to the study of natural history. On he walked, following my father through rows of geraniums, pinks, bright roses, and marvellous tulips, until at length they arrived at a sequestered part, where, on a fresh dug bed, overshadowed by two fine laburnums, stood twenty inverted flower-pots arranged in four rows. ”

“ Tibbs put his hands in his pockets and feebly smiled at my father’s words. He had tried during dinner to discover whether real seeds had been sent by some mistake, or the trick had been discovered. But my father began talking about sea anemones, prickly fish, jelly fish, of strange marine inhabitants that had the appearance of vegetables, and so on, till Mr. Tibbs saw but slight differenoe between a codfish and a fir-tree, and began to think his joke was not so good a one after all. ”

“ My father inspected them, and looked puzzled; smelt them, and said ‘humph!’ That ‘humph’ was portentous; even the stolid Tibbs would cease his chuckle at my father’s ‘humph!’
“Perhaps you know that all gardeners examine with a glass, and taste their seeds; my father was now about to go through this double process. He looked at them through his powerful microscope. ”