“Look through here, Henry,” said Miss Ryder. “You can see it if you look through here.”
Gamadge, pretending interest—Miss Abigail Ryder was his only female relative and seventy years old—peered through the meshes of the seven-foot wire fence into greenery. He said: “I can’t see a thing.”
Miss Ryder took hold of his arm and jerked him closer to her side: “Look where I’m looking.”
Gamadge could do so only by further reducing his own height. He bent, flattened his nose against the wire, and gazed earnestly through the gap in the inner hedge. He could now see across a broad lawn, through a trellised archway, and to the very end of an enclosed garden. After a moment he asked incredulously: “What on earth?”
Miss Ryder said triumphantly: “You tell me!”
“Can’t tell you. Never saw anything like it.”
“Whatever it is, imagine Johnny Redfield putting it up in his rose garden!”
“Must be a curio. But even if it is, where’s his celebrated taste we never hear the end of?”