sport in a bitterly resentful voice, he withdrew. The spirit of a wish has never more signally been fulfilled at the expense of its letter. Hope left me by the water, admiring creation. Five o'clock brought appetite and, appropriately, a little public-house. I was half full of seed cake and damson jam before I thought of my duck's egg. But it would come in at breakfast. The charge for tea was preposterously small. Well content, I rejoined the river.
An hour passed, a delicious hour in which the sun, creeping unwillingly to bed after his riot among the clouds, threw out longer and longer shadows under the trees, flushed the green downs with rose, performed miracles—for me. For me the birds sang loudly, praising the good weather. The trout showed no interest in these things. I gathered kingcups. While reaching for a particularly splendid bloom which grew low by the water's edge, I was staggered to perceive a movement, a break in the surface among some rushes some little way above me. Hope came fluttering back. With the infinite precaution of a boy scout engaged on his first practical demonstration of the principles which he has imbibed from Major-General Baden-Powell, I approached the site of the unbelievable occurrence, and beheld, raised from the water, as it were a bunch of feathers,
