wrote." I said, "Capital! Three hours to the good." "You don't understand," she said. "They were to come on the dining-train, and you never saw such a chicken as has been sent—a misery." It was my turn to grow pale. "We must buy more chickens," I said; "several more." "There are no more," said my wife tragically; "the village is empty of chickens." I perceived that my choice lay between a ten-mile bicycle ride and a little angling. It was not a hard one to make. "I will catch a trout," I said easily, as I rose from my chair and began to pull on my waders. "Let us have tea at once." "Do you think," she said, "that you had better wait for tea? It is frightfully important." Her evident anxiety that I should have every possible minute for my fishing annoyed me. I said, "I will go without tea. Though I lack, I will feed your guests." This I said to show my wife that she valued the comfort of our guests above mine, which was false, and that I proposed to supplement her shortcomings, which was base. I plucked my rod from the lawn and strode forth to catch our dinner.
It was half-past four o'clock. About five I anticipated the hatch of red quill customary on this water in this month at that hour. Meanwhile I went up the backwater, there haply to dape
