of no character or importance at all. Now why the
Reform Bill, which sheared Troy of its ancient dignities, should have
left Lestiddle's untouched, is a question no man can answer me; but
this I know, that its Mayor goes flourishing about with a silver mace
shaped like an oar, as a symbol of jurisdiction over our river from
its mouth (forsooth) so far inland as a pair of oxen yoked together
can be driven in its bed.

He has, in fact, no such jurisdiction. Above bridge he may, an it
please him, drive his oxen up the riverbed, and welcome. I leave him
to the anglers he will discommodate by it. But his jurisdiction
below bridge was very properly taken from him by order of our late
Queen (whose memory be blessed!) in Council, and vested in the Troy
Harbour Commission. Now _I_ am Chairman of that Commission, and yet
the fellow declines to yield up his silver oar! We in Troy feel
strongly about it. It is not for nothing (we hold) that when he or
his burgesses come down the river for a day's fishing the weather
invariably turns dirty. We mislike them even worse than a German
band--which brings us no worse, as a rule, than a spell of east wind.

Nevertheless, the Mayor of Lestiddle is a jolly good fellow, and I am
glad that his townsmen (such as they are) have re-elected him.
One day this last summer he came down to fish for mackerel at the
harbour's mouth, which can be done at anchor since our sardine
factory has taken to infringing the by-laws and discharging its offal
on the wrong side of the prescribed limit. (We Harbour Commissioners
have set our faces against this practice, but meanwhile it attracts
the fish.) It was raining, of course. Rowing close up to me, the
Mayor of Lestiddle asked--for we observe the ordinary courtesies--
what bait I was using. I answered, fresh pilchard bait; and offered
him some, delicately forbearing to return the question, since it is
an article of faith with us that the burgesses of Lestiddle bait with
earthworms which they dig out of their back gardens. Well, he
accepted my pilchard bait, and pulled up two score of mackerel within
as many minutes, which doubtless gave him something to boast about on
his return.

He was not ungrateful. Next week I received from him a parcel of MS.
with a letter saying that he had come across it, "a fly in amber," in
turning over a pile of old Stannary records. How it had found its
way among them he could not guess.

A fly in amber, quotha!