Hell! You must remember that!"
"That would have been the Chavica pertusum," said Gafferson,
thoughtfully. He seemed to rouse himself to an interest in
the story itself with some difficulty. "Yes--I remember it,"
he admitted, finally. "I shouldn't have known you though.
I'm the worst in the world about remembering people.
It seems to be growing on me. I notice that when I go
up to London to the shows, I don't remember the men
that I had the longest talks with the time before.
Once you get wrapped up in your flowers, you've got
no room in your head for anything else--that's the way of it."
Thorpe considered him with a ruminating eye. "So this
is the sort of thing you really like, eh? You'd rather be
doing this, eh? than making your pile in logwood and mahogany
out there, or floating a gold mine?" Gafferson answered
quite simply: "I wasn't the kind to ever make a pile.
I got led into going out there when I was a youngster,
and there didn't seem to be any good in trying to get back,
but I wasn't making more than a bare living when you
were there, and after that I didn't even do that much.
It took me a good many years to find out what my
real fancy was. I hated my hotel and my store,
but I was crazy about my garden. Finally an American
gentleman came along one day, and he put up at my place,
and he saw that I was as near ruined as they make 'em,
and he says to me, 'You're no good to run a hotel,
nor yet a store, and this aint your country for a cent.
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