people who might see him if he were on the top of the bank.

eavesdropper! It was awkward for me, but I recognized with a groan the impossibility of escaping from my predicament. I should take at least five minutes to get out safely from my hammock, and in all probability I should scare away, and prevent the meeting of, these two young people. I had better lie still. So I did.

of my own position struck me suddenly, and with such violence as almost sent Again, his handkerchief, that great me flying out of my hammock. Here red flag of his, was on the top of the was going to be a meeting-probably a bank; people who could have seen him stolen lovers' meeting-of a young there could certainly see his handker- lady and gentleman, aud I, a respectchief. Deduction it must be a previ- | able elderly city merchant, playing the ously concerted signal of his presence. Finally, who were the people who were expecting the signal, and where were they? In one direction it faced the wood; somehow I at once discarded the idea of the people being there; my conspirator had himself come through the wood a few minutes ago. In the opposite direction it faced exactly down the course of the river. As the young lady drew in under the Aha! it must be meant for some one further side of the high bank, I lost living in a fair-sized country house sight of her; a moment later, and she which I now for the first time noticed, was on the top, close by the dead tree half-a-mile away in that direction, wherefrom the red handkerchief was standing in the midst of the meadows, and whose windows and the red handkerchief directly faced one another.

I hugged myself on the correctness of my reasoning, on noticing that some one had come through a garden gate of this very house, and was now making up the meadow towards the signal; a girl (a very pretty one too, I noticed as she drew nearer) in a light summer dress, with a scarf of dull gold knotted about her waist, and a basket on her arm such as ladies generally carry when they go a-gathering wild flowers. She was tall and well-shaped, and came along with a swinging step that told of health and youth, as well as of haste.

listlessly depending in the still heat of the day. She peered cautiously over, down upon Mr. Tyncker, and laughed softly to herself as she noted the intentness with which he was watching for her (she was very pretty!). Then she suddenly grew serious and drew back. A moment afterwards she again peeped over the top of the bank, and called timidly,

เ

"Bo-ob!" "Kitty!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Tyncker ecstatically; and rushing up the bank, enfolded her in an embrace which, to an elderly party like myself, would have been absolutely crushing. But young bones don't seem to feel these things as old ones would; at any rate the young lady did not cry out (as I should have done).

At first she had made for the embankment, but instead of mounting it (when she would have been visible from Mr. Tyncker's station) she sud- Presently she disengaged herself. It denly turned a little back, and came up was high time that she did so; for a the middle of the water meadow; I stout and (by his manner of taking the presume with the idea of stealing a watercourses) evidently elderly gentlemarch on the young gentleman-man, had suddenly appeared through "making him jump," in fact. The nu- that same garden gate of the country merous little watercourses which ran in house, and was now skimming over the meadow occasioned a good deal of the meadows at his best pace, directly jumping on her own part, but she took towards the young couple. them with an ease and lightness which fairly astonished me.

As Mr. Tyncker stared eagerly down stream, along the bank, and the young lady drew closer and closer, the thought

"Uncle!" exclaimed the girl with an accent of consternation, as she caught sight of him.

I fancied that Mr. Tyncker swore vehemently, under his breath.

4266

"Just our luck!" he said, "It's "Right you are," said Mr. Tattler, as readily as possible—“anything to oblige !"

always the same! and there's no time to lose. I say, Kitty, run round to the weir quickly-you'll find Tattler there."

Mr. Tyncker crept on, under cover, till he reached the wood, and there dis

"Mr. Tattler?" cried the girl, in as- appeared. His friend climbed the bank, tonishment.

66

Sly dog!" said Mr. Tattler, digging the unfortunate Bob very violently in the ribs, 66 so this is your little game, is

it ?"

peeped over, saw the old gentleman coming, and ducked down again. The astute Mr. Tattler evidently took in the whole situation at once, and settled himself down to fish with an air of expectant amusement. His first thought was to pull up the line, and see what bait might be on the hook. When he tried to do so, however, it appeared that the float was entangled among the matted weeds and branches beneath the bush, and he could not at once get it out. As he struggled with this difficulty, he indulged in a soliloquy, somewhat (I fancy) as follows:

"Well, I am blowed-here's a rum go! Kitty Dobson down here der where she hangs out?

6

6

won

A couple

Mr. Tattler must have been chanced upon very opportunely, for few seconds elapsed before he appeared, coming of days' fishing!'-Oh Bob, Bobalong cautiously under cover of the but your quiet fellow is always the bank, as directed, and quickly reached deepest rascal out, and now he's in a his friend. hole oh woman, lovely woman, what scrapes you do get us into! I fancy I hear a snorting on the other side of this old bank - I doubt it is the old gentleman in a rage'-hope it ain't the Old Gentleman himself. I say, Tattler, Kitty is prettier than ever! she was very much that way when you met her up at Cambridge last May, old chap-but now ! - Heigho!" and Mr. Tattler stared through his eyeglass at the water, in a mock-sentimental way that convinced me, in spite of his sighs, that he was quite heart-whole; but that, on occasion, he might well call forth the epithet of "that wretch Mr. Tattler."

"Don't," said Tyncker viciously; "but I say, Tattler, would you mind taking my rod for me a few minutes ? I won't be long away. I'm going round to the inn

"I know!" said Tattler sarcastically, catching his friend another dig, "very much round to the inn! Miss Kitty Dobson's Entire,' eh? Oh, Bob, Bob, you are a bad lot! I know all about it."

"No you don't," said Bob quietly, thrusting the rod into Tattler's hands, and then hurriedly departing.

A few moments afterwards, the "old gentleman," flushed and heated to the last degree, rushed up on to the top of the bank. With great surprise I recognized him; it was a Mr. Dobson, a retired city merchant, whom I had

"And I say, Tattler," said Bob, turning round when he had crept along under the bank a few yards, "an old gentleman in a rage will be here in half a minute. He'll be awfully sur-known fairly well in years gone by. prised to find you here instead of me just keep it up a bit, old chap, will you, and angry. and don't let him know it was me, Bob Tyncker, that he saw here just now?"

"Hello!" said Dobson, breathless

"Hello!" responded Mr. Tattler, without looking round, and busying

TE

himself more than ever with the float | he was thus summarily called to account and the bush.

"Hello I say," repeated Mr. Dobson more fiercely, as he saw the other pay so little attention to him; "look here, sir, you—you fellow there- Mr. Tyncker-I must have a word with you. Come up here, sir!"

for his violence.

amaze. "I made a mistake I thought
you was some one else a Mr. Tyncker,
in fact, from Cambridge; I must have
been misled by your wearing the same
sort of clothes as he often does
blue coat, and those queer checked
trousers (their college boat-colors, as a
matter of fact, is what both the young
fellows were wearing).

66

To this command Mr. Tattler paid not the slightest heed. Sitting calmly at Sitting calmly at the foot of the bank, his knees, drawn up inside his arms, almost touching his chin, I could see that he was hugging Mr. Tattler saw his way to a small himself (but with an imperturbable joke, and sacrificed his present advancountenance) on the old gentleman's tage to get at it. mistake. :. Say on, Macduff !" he said, Tyncker, of Cambridge?" he said. in a sort of stage aside. meditatively; "I think I know the Confound you, sir," said Mr. Dob-name -is he a Trinity mau, son, stamping with rage, will you come up here ?" and by way of enforcing his words he pitched a tuft of grass which happened to be lying on the bank, down at the supposed Mr. Bob Tyncker.

6.

66

Whether the old gentleman intended precisely to hit his mark I do not know; but the tuft of grass caught Tattler fairly on the back of the head. The small blue boating-cap (First Trinity boat-colors, as I believe) which he was wearing was sent forward over his eyes, while the dry mould adhering to the roots on the grass was littered about over his shoulders and down the back of his neck.

"Coufound you, sir," exclaimed Mr. Tattler in his turn, springing up and holding the rod in one hand while he waved the other in eloquent expostulation, "what do you mean by this? You come down here, making enough row to scare all the fish for a mile down the river; you yell at me by the name of Tyncker, whereas I am called Tattler; and when I don't answer to your confounded blandishments, you pitch clods of earth at me. If I was a friend or acquaintance of yours it might be different; but, as a matter of fact, I don't know you from Adam—what do you want, sir, eh ?”

know?"

do you

A suppressed chuckle from behind a rhododendron bush in my immediate vicinity betrayed to me the fact that Mr. Tyucker had contrived to add himself as a spectator to this little scene, and that he enjoyed Tattler's witticism immensely.

Yes, he is a Trinity man," said the old gentleman, recovering his wits and his anger at the same time. "" One of those rascally undergraduates who go rampaging about all over the country, looking about for a pretty girl to make love to. You are one of them yourself, I see very well; I have to ask you what you mean by your extraordinary conduct just now?"

"What conduct?" asked Tattler, opening his eyes in genuine amazement. “Why, kissing my niece and all the rest of it, if you want to know," shouted Mr. Dobson.

"But I have done nothing of the sort; don't know your niece. I say, you are coming it rather strong, you know," expostulated Tattler.

"You didn't?" ejaculated the old man, staggered by the other's apparent honesty in what he said; “why, I saw you myself, out of my study window yonder. With a twenty-horse-power telescope, sir, I saw you, as distinctly

This was getting the whip-hand of as I do now." poor Mr. Dobson with a vengeance.

"Confound that fellow Bob," said

The dismay with which he had been poor Tattler, aside; "here's a deuce of contemplating Tattler was intensified as a hole he's put me in. I can only

assure you, sir, that you are entirely | tiously answering Tattler's
mistaken."
questions.

leading

"I'm nothing of the sort," said Dob- "Well, sir, — (if I don't get a chamson, as testily as ever; "how could I be, pagne lunch out of old Tyncker for with a twenty-horse-power telescope ? this, I'm a Dutchman) — that just shows My niece's back was turned towards the danger of using such terribly strong me, I know; but I'll swear that her instruments on short ranges, when you cheek and that blue coat of yours were ain't used to 'em; they make things not a hair's breadth apart, for two or look so close. Now, suppose your niece three minutes at least." (As a matter was two yards away from me, in a of fact, the young lady's head had been direct line, you will understand — sidecrushed against Mr. Bob Tyncker's ways, of course, it don't have this effect manly bosom for fully three minutes; - why, of course, that powerful teleand a dark-blue sleeve had been passed scope makes her look as if she was around her waist meanwhile — and that | fairly crushed right up against me. must have shown up well against her Surely you will understand that clearly light dress, through a telescope at halfa-mile distance.) "And then," continued the old gentleman, "when you saw me coming, you bolted down this bank, and here I find you."

enough? It is the simplest thing in the world," concluded Mr. Tattler, solemnly staring at the other through his eyeglass, "and is well known to the great astronomers at Cambridge. They always take it into account in making observations. Really you ought to be more careful, sir."

"God bless my soul! 99 ejaculated the old gentleman, fairly staggered.

A smothered roar of laughter from the rhododendrons, where Mr. Bob Tyncker was doubtlessly in raptures over his friend's astuteness, reached my ears; but the others did not appear to notice it. The old gentleman was, in fact, staring at the unmoved Tattler as if he were some new and curious type of life now for the first time brought beneath his notice. I knew Dobson fairly well, and guessed the truth. He had been staggered by Tattler's impudence and not by his astronomical explanation. Tattler had made a dire mistake, and I was convinced that my old friend was only seeking to devise a plan by which he could hoist him with his own petard.

This conviction became a certainty when the old gentleman, after saying many handsome things by way of apology for his late behavior, ended by inviting the young undergraduate "to

"Just so," replied Mr. Tattler triumphantly; "I see now! — (saved, by Jove, and get Bob out of the pickle, and keep Kitty out of a row, too)! You know telescopes make things look very much closer, don't they?—that's the use of 'em. F'r instance, a church | lunch, at half past one, sharp." But I five miles away looks only fifty yards off, when you stick your telescope on to it, don't it?"

heard Tyncker swearing to himself below his breath as he listened to an invitation which he would have given his Certainly," replied Mr. Dobson ears to receive himself, and which apagain, still more perplexed, and incau-peared to rouse all his latent jealousy

of his friend; for Tattler evidently made no secret of his admiration for Miss Kitty.

The old gentleman went away towards the wood, I presume to find his niece. Mr. Tyncker thereupon also took his departure in rather sulky silence and without addressing Tattler; and Tattler himself, being evidently a keen and practised fisherman, again directed his attention to the refractory float.

III.
LUNCH.

I HAD determined to let Mr. Tyncker know that his proceedings of the morning were no secret, and that I strongly disapproved of them. For in Mr. Dobson's niece, the young lady addressed as "Kitty" by Mr. Tyncker (my memory being jogged by seeing her uncle), I had recognized the orphan daughter of my poor old friend John Dobson. He got it free at last, and pulled up She had been a little chit of a thing the line to see what bait Tyncker had when I had last seen her, but I knew been fishing with. As he drew it she had no one in the world to take care towards him he gave a low whistle of of her now but this one old bachelor comical surprise; "Well, I am blowed," | uncle; and, if I judged rightly, she was he said, as he looked at the thing dan- treating him with a thoughtlessness and gling on the end of the line; a salmon-disobedience which rendered her situafly, by all that's extraordinary! No tion a dangerous one. So I determined wonder we didn't get a bite. What a to speak to Mr. Tyncker very seriously queer chap old Tyncker is, to be sure. — give him a piece of my mind, in fact. I think I'll take the liberty of changing his tackle and going to have a try in the weir-pool with a big lob-worm.”

66

As he gathered the things together and was departing, he met Mr. Dobson coming back.

66

Caught anything?" said Dobson amicably.

N-no," said poor Tattler, hurriedly pushing past, and concealing the unlucky salmon-fly in his hand, at the imminent risk of running the hook into his fingers, "the fish don't seem on the feed here; I'm going to try in the weir. (Confound that fellow Tyncker !)"

Dobson let him pass on without further comment, for in pausing to talk the red signal which was still flying on the dead tree had caught his attention. "Wonder who put that up there ?" he seemed to say to himself. He managed to grasp the lowest corner, and, with a vigorous tug, down came the handkerchief. Mr. Dobson examined the corners in search of a name and found one. "R. Tyncker!" he read aloud, "then it was that young scoundrel, after

all."

He stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket, and strode away with an air of determination that boded ill for all parties concerned in the deception of which he had been the victim.

The opportunity presently arose as we were taking lunch together. Tattler had started some time before to take his meal at Mr. Dobson's house in accordance with the invitation he had received, and, in blissful ignorance of the reception he was likely to meet with, had been chaffing his friend unmercifully as to the unscrupulous way in which he intended to push his own cause with the young lady; and Tyncker, after eating for some time in depressed silence, commenced to search his pockets for his handkerchief.