Landscape
gardeners!" he exclaimed impatiently. "Their only idea is to insult
nature. The place was better the day I bought it, when it was running
wild; you could pick flowers all the way to the gates." Pleased that it
should have recurred to him, the great man smiled. "Why, Spear," he
exclaimed, "always took in a bunch of them for his mother. Don't you
remember, we used to see him before breakfast wandering around the
grounds picking flowers?" Mr. Thorndike nodded briskly. "I like his
taking flowers to his mother."
"He _said_ it was to his mother," suggested the secretary gloomily.
"Well, he picked the flowers, anyway," laughed Mr. Thorndike. "He didn't
pick our pockets. And he had the run of the house in those days. As far
as we know," he dictated, "he was satisfactory. Don't say more than
that."
The secretary scribbled a mark with his pencil. "And the landscape man?"
"Tell him," commanded Thorndike, "I want a wood road, suitable to a
farm; and to let the trees grow where God planted them."
As his car slid downtown on Tuesday morning the mind of Arnold
Thorndike was occupied with such details of daily routine as the
purchase of a railroad, the Japanese loan, the new wing to his art
gallery, and an attack that morning, in his own newspaper, upon his pet
trust.
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