"We've no time for picking sixpenn'orths, boy.

Run up into the road to the greengrocer's shop." My face grew scarlet, and the beautiful garden seemed as if it was under a cloud instead of the full blaze of sunshine, while I turned upon my heel and was walking straight back.
"Here!" I walked on.
"Hi, boy!" shouted old Brownsmith.
I turned round, and he was signalling to me with the whole of his crooked arm.
"Come on," he shouted, and he thrust a hand and the greater part of his arm into one of his big pockets, and pulled out one of those curved buckhorn-handled knives, which he opened with his white teeth.
He did not look quite so grim now, as he said: "Come o' purpose, eh ?" "Yes," I said.
"Ah! well, I won't send you back without 'em, only I don't keep a shop." I looked rather haughty and consequential, I believe, but the looks of such a boy as I made no impression, and he began to cut here and there moss, and maiden's blush, and cabbage roses--simple old-fashioned flowers, for the great French growers had not filled England with their beautiful children, and a gardener in these days would not have believed in the possibility of a creamy _Gloire de Dijon_ or that great hook-thorned golden beauty _Marechal Niel_.
He cut and cut, long-stalked flowers with leaf and bud, and thrust them into his left hand, his knife cutting and his hand grasping the flower in one movement, while his eye selected the best blossom at a glance.
At last there were so many that I grew fidgety.
"I said sixpenn'orth, sir, flowers and strawberries," I ventured to remark.
"Not deaf, my lad," he replied with a grim smile.

"Here, let's get some of these." These were pinks and carnations, of which he cut a number, pushing one of the cats aside with his foot so that it should not be in his way.
"Here you are!" he cried.

"Mind the thorns.

My roses have got plenty to keep off pickers and stealers.