"Do you mean to tell me that there really are blights and destructive fungi in this province?" I asked incredulously.
The "smoke expert" made a gesture of despair.
"Come on! Don't listen to him!" yelled the real-estate man, recognizing the mistake he had made. "He's the damnedest liar in British Columbia."
"Wait a minute," I replied. "I want to know. That is what I am here for. Now, tell me please, please, what orchard pests there are?"
"You'll admit that because no one ever sued the smelter for putting coddling worms in apples. Come along! Don't listen to him!"
"That's a damned lie! I have a whole orchard of pears and there has never been a trace of fire-blight. Any fire-blight in this district has been caused by the smoke from your blithering smelter."
"But," I reproached him, "if something like fire-blight is caused by smelter smoke, isn't that just as bad as fire-blight? You didn't say anything to me about smelter smoke."
"It doesn't do any damage either--at least not much."
"But the farmers have been suing us," said the smoke expert. "Of course they had no reason to sue us because the damage was clearly done by fire-blight."
"Nothing of the kind! And, anyway, the prevailing wind carries the smelter smoke over the mountains where there are no orchards or farms. Aw, come along, and don't listen to him!"
The "smoke expert" smiled sadly and shook his head with gentle tolerance. Finding in me the first sympathetic listener he had had for years he persisted in making revelations.
"Last fall I found an interesting case of 'withered plum--"
"You couldn't convince the jury that it was a fungous growth that affected those plums."
"No, for they didn't want to be convinced. They wanted to soak us. Then there was that 'clover sickness.'"
Seeing that he couldn't stop what he had started, the disgusted real-estate agent collapsed into a chair while I had an illuminating chat with the "smoke expert." Occasionally he interrupted with a vivid protest, but he couldn't quench my thirst for knowledge, or the expert's desire to impart scientific information.
"Let me tell you what the fellows did!" he at last exclaimed triumphantly. "They took some healthy leaves and sprinkled them with sulphuric acid. This expert diagnosed it as shot-hole fungus--a kind that he had been looking for for years--a kind they have in Australia--"