dently. "Besides, what's that got
to do with me?"

"Why, he's a friend of yours."

"That I'm sure he's not. He's a nasty, mean beggar, who makes me pay
ever so much for everything he does for me. You ask him," continued
Mercer, giving his head a side wag at me, "if only this morning he
didn't make me give him twopence for a pen'orth of worms."

"Yes, that he did," I said, coming to my companion's help.

"Humph!" grunted the keeper. "Well, youngsters, never you mind that,
you pay him, and keep him at a distance. He's no good to nobody, and I
wonder at Doctor Browne, as teaches young gents to be gents, should keep
such a bad un about his place. He's a rank poacher, that's what he is,
and there ain't nothing worse than a poacher, is there, Jem Roff?"

"Thief," said that gentleman.

"Thief? I don't know so much about that. Thieves don't go thieving
with loaded guns to shoot keepers, do they?"

"Well, no," said Jem.

"Of course they don't, so that's what I say--there aren't nothing worse
than a poacher, and don't you young gents have anything to do with him,
or, as sure as you stand there, he'll get you into some scrape."

"Who's going to have anything to do with him?" cried Mercer pettishly.

"Why, you are, sir."

"I only buy a bird of him, sometimes, to stuff."

"Yes, birds he's shot on our grounds, I'll be bound, or else trapped
ones."

"Well, they're no good, and you never shoot anything for me. P'r'aps he
is a bad one, but if I pay him, he is civil. He wouldn't refuse to let
two fellows go through the big woods."

"Thought you was going fishing."

"Not till this evening, after tea."

"Where are you going?"

"Down by the mill."

"Wouldn't like to try after a big carp, I s'pose, or one of our old
perch?"

"Wouldn't like!" cried Mercer excitedly.

"No, I thought you wouldn't," said the keeper. "There, I must be off."

"Oh, I say, Bob Hopley, do give us leave."

"What leave?"

"To have an hour or two in the hammer pond. There's a good chap, do!"

"The master mightn't like it. Not as he ever said I wasn't to let any
one fish."

"Then let's go."

"No, my lads, I'm not going to give you leave," said the keeper, with a
twinkle in his eyes; "but there's a couple o' rods and lines all right,
under the thatch of the boat-house."

"Yes, Bob, but what about bait?"

"Oh, I don't know 'bout bait. P'r'aps there's some big worms in the
moss in that old tin pot in the corner."

"Oh, B