keeper,
however, moderated any secret intentions there might have been as to
the plumage by one sentence: "That's another for the vermin book. I
gets a bob for that."

The keeper's cottage gave lunch and rest to the party, and the talk was
either of ferrets, hares, and rabbits, or of the two rudely carpentered
cases which contained well-set-up specimens of teal, cuckoo, wryneck,
abnormally marked swallow, pied rat, landrail, and polecat, each being
a chapter in the life history of the keeper.

The tale of rabbits being incomplete, M. returned to his former
occupation, but S. fished again, continually finding sport of the
miscellaneous kind, such as a chub with cheese paste, perch with dew
worm out of the milk-prepared moss, roach rod with running tackle, and
leger tackle on a spinning rod. With this and a great worm on strong
hook he had the surprise of a fight that gave him not a little concern.
The fish at first appeared to be going to ground, even boring bodily
into it. Then it gave way to panic, and shot about the pool as if
pursued by a water fiend. Winched in slowly, it plunged into the bank,
thought better of it, and ran up stream. At this crisis M. arrived,
commandeered the net, and stood around offering advice. It was a
monster eel, he said. Give him more butt; be careful; be more
energetic; certainly, all right. The last remark was simply a receipt
in form of a little speech from S., who had briefly bidden him to mind
his own business. The unseen fish abruptly had given in. Was it
collapse? Slowly, slowly it followed the revolution of the reel, both
men peering intent for first sight and grounds for identification of
species. The first sight, however, must have been on the part of the
fish, which went off in a fright deep down with renewed strength, and
then it did surrender, a barbel of 6 lb., a somewhat rare fish for the
river, and only taken when, as in this case, it had wandered up into
the weir pool.

Having told M. to mind his own business with a minimum of ceremony, it
was not surprising that S. was left alone, not exactly to his sport,
since, as it happened, the barbel closed his account, unless one or two
losses may be included in that definition, and, to give him his due, he
was so thorough a fisherman that he did regard losses, shortcomings,
and mishaps as legitimate assets in the general game. He had forgotten
in his barbeline absorption to inquire, according to usage, how his
com