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“As I said, we only ‘ad it two years. The fust year the garden as got it was a picter, and Bill Chambers, ‘im as won the prize, used to say as ‘e was out o’ pocket by it, taking ‘is time and the money ‘e spent on flowers. Not as we believed that, you understand, ‘specially as Bill did ‘is very best to get it the next year, too. ‘E didn’t get it, and though p’r’aps most of us was glad ‘e didn’t, we was all very surprised at the way it turned out in the end.

“The Flower Show was to be ‘eld on the 5th o’ July, just as a’most everything about here was at its best. On the 15th of June Bill Chambers’s garden seemed to be leading, but Peter Smith and Joe Gubbins and Sam Jones and Henery Walker was almost as good, and it was understood that more than one of ’em had got a surprise which they’d produce at the last moment, too late for the others to copy. We used to sit up here of an evening at this Cauliflower public-house and put money on it. I put mine on Henery Walker, and the time I spent in ‘is garden ‘elping ‘im is a sin and a shame to think of.

“Of course some of ’em used to make fun of it, and Bob Pretty was the worst of ’em all. He was always a lazy, good-for-nothing man, and ‘is garden was a disgrace. He’d chuck down any rubbish in it: old bones, old tins, bits of an old bucket, anything to make it untidy. He used to larf at ’em awful about their gardens and about being took up by the parson’s wife. Nobody ever see ‘im do any work, real ‘ard work, but the smell from ‘is place at dinner-time was always nice, and I believe that he knew more about game than the parson hisself did.

“It was the day arter this one I’m speaking about, the 16th o’ June, that the trouble all began, and it came about in a very eggstrordinary way. George English, a quiet man getting into years, who used when ‘e was younger to foller the sea, and whose only misfortin was that ‘e was a brother-in-law o’ Bob Pretty’s, his sister marrying Bob while ‘e was at sea and knowing nothing about it, ‘ad a letter come from a mate of his who ‘ad gone to Australia to live. He’d ‘ad letters from Australia before, as we all knew from Miss Wicks at the post-office, but this one upset him altogether. He didn’t seem like to know what to do about it.

“While he was wondering Bill Chambers passed. He always did pass George’s ‘ouse about that time in the evening, it being on ‘is way ‘ome, and he saw George standing at ‘is gate with a letter in ‘is ‘and looking very puzzled.

“‘Evenin’, George,’ ses Bill.

“‘Evenin’,’ ses George.

“‘Not bad news, I ‘ope?’ ses Bill, noticing ‘is manner, and thinking it was strange.

“‘No,’ ses George. ‘I’ve just ‘ad a very eggstrordinary letter from Australia,’ he ses, ‘that’s all.’

“Bill Chambers was always a very inquisitive sort o’ man, and he stayed and talked to George until George, arter fust making him swear oaths that ‘e wouldn’t tell a soul, took ‘im inside and showed ‘im the letter.

“It was more like a story-book than a letter. George’s mate, John Biggs by name, wrote to say that an uncle of his who had just died, on ‘is deathbed told him that thirty years ago he ‘ad been in this very village, staying at this ‘ere very Cauliflower, whose beer we’re drinking now. In the night, when everybody was asleep, he got up and went quiet-like and buried a bag of five hundred and seventeen sovereigns and one half-sovereign in one of the cottage gardens till ‘e could come for it agin. He didn’t say ‘ow he come by the money, and, when Bill spoke about that, George English said that, knowing the man, he was afraid ‘e ‘adn’t come by it honest, but anyway his friend John Biggs wanted it, and, wot was more, ‘ad asked ‘im in the letter to get it for ‘im.