"There is an ox in my garden," she announced, in explanation of the
tempestuous intrusion.
"An ox," said Eshley blankly, and rather fatuously; "what kind of ox?"
"Oh, I don't know what kind," snapped the lady. "A common or garden ox,
to use the slang expression. It is the garden part of it that I object
to. My garden has just been put straight for the winter, and an ox
roaming about in it won't improve matters. Besides, there are the
chrysanthemums just coming into flower."
"How did it get into the garden?" asked Eshley.
"I imagine it came in by the gate," said the lady impatiently; "it
couldn't have climbed the walls, and I don't suppose anyone dropped it
from an aeroplane as a Bovril advertisement. The immediately important
question is not how it got in, but how to get it out."
"Won't it go?" said Eshley.
"If it was anxious to go," said Adela Pingsford rather angrily, "I should
not have come here to chat with you about it. I'm practically all alone;
the housemaid is having her afternoon out and the cook is lying down with
an attack of neuralgia. Anything that I may have learned at school or in
after life about how to remove a large ox from a small garden seems to
have escaped from my memory now. All I could think of was that you were
a near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or less familiar
with the subjects that you painted, and that you might be of some slight
assistance. Possibly I was mistaken."
"I paint dairy cows, certainly," admitted Eshley, "but I cannot claim to
have had any experience in rounding-up stray oxen.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176