estimable woman.

And what can I tell you about the river? You live half a mile nearer to it than I do, and ought to be better up in it."

"I am better up in the mists than you are," I smartly returned. "I was up to my neck in them last night, but I have never tried the fishing. I see people in punts and boats, and on the banks sometimes, but they are mostly sad and silent, and catch no more than the man in Happy Thoughts. But the people I do not see write to the papers with accounts of famous bags: I want to go where they go."

'Oh, you want to try the stone jar and cigar-box business in a punt, do you?" said my host. "Poor young man! Angling is an art, and there is no doubt a certain amount of skill necessary, but what you chiefly need is imagination. Look at that Turner engraving : it is the small 'Lucerne.' Do you suppose you would have seen it like that?

He waved his pipe towards a picture on the wall, and I examined the beautiful print with admiration, but confessed that in my recollec

tion the place looked flatter. "Just so," said my friend: "that is Art."

"But you are a fisherman, are you not?" I said, "so you ought not to be sceptical. People exaggerate, of course, and the biggest fish are always the ones that get off; but still some good ones are landed, and I will be satisfied with others like them. I suppose you fish in the Thames sometimes ? Tell me

where to go to."

Anderson was looking dreamily into the fire. "Yes," he said, "I have fished in the Thames once. It was with old Stephen Farebrother, one of the best-known river anglers."

"I know his name," I remarked encouragingly. "Tell me about it."

Instead of replying directly, Anderson rose, and after a moment's hesitation, took from a shelf a bound volume of the Field, which he opened, and running his finger along a few paragraphs, directed my attention to one near the bottom of a page. It ran thus:

'On Saturday, Mr. Anderson of Dipton was out with Stephen Farebrother, the well-known Thames fisherman, and had fair sport: the best fish were jack, 10 lb., 7 lb., and 5 lb."

"Capital!" I cried with enthusiasm. "That's just what I wanted to see. What's Farebrother's address ? I'll engage him for Saturday."

"I am afraid you cannot do that, because he has taken a permanent appointment at the Angler's Rest on the Styx," said the subject of the stirring paragraph (who is of a slightly irreverent turn of mind); " but you can get somebody equally good, I have no doubt."

He smiled thoughtfully as we settled ourselves back into our chairs, and the twinkle of the successful sportsman glittered in his blue

eyes.

"I will tell you about it," he went on: fill your pipe. I was once staying with my brother-in-law, who has a rectory at Thornton; his garden adjoins the squire's park in the usual way, and a good-sized lake is visible from the dining-room window."

I should never think of interrupting anyone telling a story, much less a man like the humorous Anderson, but I spasmodically clutched my latchkey as I observed a Thames fish-tale beginning fifty miles off in a pond.

"I was working one morning," he went on, with great deliberation, "in this dining-room, and was rather pressed for time, when I was interrupted by a small boy in a knickerbocker suit, who was looking at me inquiringly through the window. He asked where the rector was. I said shortly that I did not know; but he would not go away, and stood shifting from one leg to the other, and feeling something in his jacket pocket."

(We now seemed farther from the subject than ever; but my chair chair was comfortable, anglers should be patient, and so I waited.)

"At last I got from him that the rector had promised to show him how to fish in the lake, our lake, he said, and he was not going away without instruction, so to get rid of him I stepped out on to the lawn and asked him what tackle he had got. The squire was evidently not over-generous to his offspring in the matter of gear: there was no rod, and for a line a strong cord was to do duty, attached to an enormous hook, made for conger eels, I should suppose; there were a dozen wine-bottle corks, a dead sparrow,

and a moist, flaccid little frog, which the lad had been caressing in his pocket. I walked the young gentleman off to the lake, put the frog on the hook, tied a bundle of corks to the line, fastening the shore end to a tree, and told Master Hopeful to sit on the bank, and tell me when the corks had been submerged for five minutes, and not before. I never saw a boy so good: he sat down without a word, and devoured the corks with his eyes. I went back to my work, secure for the day."

"So that put you in mind of more serious fishing in the Thames?" I ventured to suggest during a pause.

"Not at all. I settled down to my writing again as quickly as possible, but in half an hour the boy appeared again. 'Hi!' he yelled. 'Come, come along, we've got him on!' It was no use objecting; I had to go back to the lake, and there, sure enough, I found a pike securely hooked. He scaled seven pounds."

"How extraordinary!" I said, admiring my friend's unobtrusive good-nature.

"Yes, the boy was pleased, I recollect. Indeed, with one exception, I think it was the