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“I believe, sir,” said Archer, “that it is supposed to represent a gun.”

“It is holding it wrong,” remarked Crane. “A man with a hat like that would miss for sure.”

“Do you want me to buy another hat?” asked the patient Archer.

“No, no,” answered his master carelessly. “Since the poor fellow has such a rotten hat, I’ll give him mine. Like the scene of St. Martin and the beggar.”

“Give him yours,” repeated Archer respectfully, but very quietly.

The Colonel took off his polished top-hat and gravely placed it on the head of the Oceanic idol at his feet. It had a strange effect of making the grotesque piece of stone look alive, as if a goblin in a top-hat was grinning at the garden.

“Do you think the hat shouldn’t be quite new?” he asked almost anxiously. “Not usual among the best scarecrows, perhaps. Well, let’s see what we can do to make it a little older.”

He raised his walking-stick above his head and hit the silk hat with a loud smack, smashing it over the empty eyes of the idol.

“Softened with the touch of time now, I think,” he remarked, holding out what remained of the silken hat to the gardener. “Put it on the scarecrow, my friend; I don’t want it. You can be a witness that it’s no use to me.”

Archer obeyed like a robot. A robot with rather round eyes.

“We must hurry up,” said the Colonel cheerfully. “I was early for church, but I’m afraid I’m a bit late now.”

“Did you plan to attend church without a hat, sir?” asked the other.

“Certainly not. Most disrespectful,” said the Colonel. “Nobody should neglect to remove his hat when he enters church. Well, if I don’t have a hat, I will neglect to remove it. Where is your logic this morning? No, no, just dig up one of your cabbages.”

Once more the well-trained servant managed to repeat the word “Cabbages” with his own polite intonation; but he couldn’t say it very loudly at the moment.

“Yes, go and pull up a cabbage, please,” said the Colonel. “I must really be going; I believe I heard the clock strike eleven.”

Mr. Archer moved heavily in the direction of a plot of cabbages, where many monstrous contours and many colours were open to the eye; objects, perhaps, more worthy of the philosophic eye than is usually taken into account. Vegetables are curious-looking things and less trivial than they sound. If we called a cabbage a cactus, or some other exotic name, we might see it as an equally exotic thing.

The Colonel revealed these philosophical truths by dragging a great, green cabbage with its long root out of the earth, before the dubious Archer had time to do it. He then picked up a knife and cut short the long tail of the root. After that he cut out the inside leaves to create some empty space, and gravely reversing it, placed it on his head. Napoleon and other military princes have crowned themselves; and he, like the Caesars, wore a wreath that was, after all, made of green leaves or vegetation. There can be other historical parallels, of course, if the reader is ready to look at such a hat without judgement.