r's opinion might have
been more interesting to discover.

"You were looking so comfortable," said Fisher, "that I thought you
must be one of the servants. I'm looking for somebody to take this
bag of mine; I haven't brought a man down, as I came away in a
hurry."

"Nor have I, for that matter," replied the duke, with some pride. "I
never do. If there's one animal alive I loathe it's a valet. I
learned to dress myself at an early age and was supposed to do it
decently. I may be in my second childhood, but I've not go so far as
being dressed like a child."

"The Prime Minister hasn't brought a valet; he's brought a secretary
instead," observed Fisher. "Devilish inferior job. Didn't I hear
that Harker was down here?"

"He's over there on the landing stage," replied the duke,
indifferently, and resumed the study of the Morning Post.

Fisher made his way beyond the last green wall of the garden on to a
sort of towing path looking on the river and a wooden island
opposite. There, indeed, he saw a lean, dark figure with a stoop
almost like that of a vulture, a posture well known in the law
courts as that of Sir John Harker, the Attorney-General. His face
was lined with headwork, for alone among the three idlers in the
garden he was a man who had made his own way; and round his bald
brow and hollow temples clung dull red hair, quite flat, like plates
of copper.

"I haven't seen my host yet," said Horne Fisher, in a slightly more
serious tone than he had used to the others, "but I suppose I shall
meet him at dinner."

"You can see him now; but you can't meet him," answered Harker.

He nodded his head toward one end of the island opposite, and,
looking steadily in the same direction, the other guest could see
the dome of a bald head and the top of a fishing rod, both equally
motionless, rising out of the tall undergrowth against the
background of the stream beyond. The fisherman seemed to be seated
against the stump of a tree and facing toward the other bank, so
that his face could not be seen, but the shape of his head was
unmistakable.

"He doesn't like to be disturbed when he's fishing," continued
Harker. "It's a sort of fad of his to eat nothing but fish, and he's
very proud of catching his own. Of course he's all for simplicity,
like so many of these millionaires. He likes to come in saying he's
worked for his daily bread like a laborer."

"Does he explain how he blows all the glass and stuffs all the
uphols