Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/176

THE VIZIER OF THE generally better than those of the year before. Then why is not the gardener better?' To these words she immediately added, being a woman of kind impulses, 'But in the case of a good gardener, such as you are, I 've no doubt he does grow better, year by year."

"What was there startling in that little speech?" asked Mrs. Crowder. "I don't think she could have said anything less."

"I will tell you why I was startled," said her husband. "Almost those very word—mark me, almost those very words—had been said to me when I was working in the wonderful gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, and he was standing by me watching me prune a rose-bush. That Maria Edgeworth and the great Nebuchadnezzar should have said the same thing to me was enough to startle me." To this astounding statement Mrs. Crowder and I listened with wide-open eyes.

"Yes," said Mr. Crowder; "you may think it amazing that a very ordinary remark should connect 'The Parents' Assistant' with the city of Babylon, but so it