you had been walking through a river instead of beside
it."

"That's just what I have been doing," said Stafford, with a laugh.
"I've had an adventure--"

"I know," interrupted Howard, with a sigh. "You are going to tell me
how you hooked a trout six foot in length, how it dragged you a mile
and a half up the river, how you got it up to the bank, and how, just
as you were landing it, it broke away and was lost. Every man who has
been fishing has that adventure."

Stafford laughed with his usual appreciation of his friend's amusing
cynicism; but he did not correct him; for at that moment, the neat
maid-servant brought in the trout, which proved to be piping hot and of
a golden-brown; and the two men commenced a dinner which, as compared
with the famous, or infamous one, of the London restaurant, was
Olympian. The landlord himself brought in a bottle of claret, which
actually was sound, and another of port, in a wicker cradle, which even
Howard deigned to approve of; and the two men, after they had lingered
over their dinner, got into easy-chairs beside the fire and smoked
their cigars with that sweet contentment which only tobacco can
produce, and only then when it follows a really good meal.

"Do you know how long you are going to stay in your father's little
place?" Howard asked, after a long and dreary silence.

Stafford shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"'Pon my word, I don't know," he answered. "I'm like the school-boy: 'I
don't know nothink.' I suppose I shall stay as long as the governor
does; and, come to that, I suppose he doesn't know how long that will
be. I've got to regard him as a kind of stormy petrel; here to-day and
gone to-morrow, always on the wing, and never resting anywhere for any
time. I'm never surprised when I hear that, though his last letter was
dated Africa, he has flown back to Europe or has run over to
Australia."

"Y-es," said Howard, musingly, "there is an atmosphere of mystery and
romance about your esteemed parent, Sir Stephen Orme, which smacks of
the Arabian Nights, my dear Stafford. Man of the world as I am, I must
confess that I regard him with a kind of wondering awe; and that I
follow his erratic movements very much as one would follow the
celestial progress of a particularly splendacious comet. He never
ceases to be an object of wonderment to me; and I love to read of his
gigantic projects, his vast wealth, his brilliant successes; and I tell
you frankly that I am looking