“But I 've given Tompkins final instructions.”      

       “And what are they?”      

       “To throw him in the river next time.”      

       “Oh, if he only could!” 'rapturously.'     

       “Could? My dear, Tompkins is an American. He can handle these chaps in their own way. At any rate, I told Tompkins if his nerve failed him at the last minute to come and notify me. I 'll attend to this confounded popinjay!”      

       “Good for you, Cecil!” called out another young woman from the broad hammock in which she had been dawdling with half-alert ears through the foregoing conversation. “Spoken like a true Briton. What is this popinjay like?”      

       “Hullo, sister. Hang it all, what's he like? He's like an ass, that's all. I've never seen him, but if I'm ever called upon to—but you don't care to listen to details. You remember the big log that lies out in the river up at the bend? Well, it marks the property line. One half of its stump belongs to the Shaw man, the other half to m—to us, Evelyn. He shan't fish below that log—no, sir!” His lordship glared fiercely through his monocle in the direction of the far-away log, his watery blue eyes blinking as malevolently as possible, his long, aristocratic nose wrinkling at its base in fine disdain. His five feet four of stature quivered with illy-subdued emotion, but whether it was rage or the sudden recollection of the dog-trot through the woods, it is beyond me to suggest.     

       “But suppose our fish venture into his waters, Cecil; what then? Is n't that trespass?” demanded the Honourable Penelope Drake, youngest and most cherished sister of his lordship.     

       “Now, don't be silly, Pen,” cried her sister-in-law. “Of course we can't regulate the fish.”      

       “But I daresay his fish will come below the log, so what's the odds?” said his lord-ship quickly. “A trout 's a lawless brute at best.”      

       “Is he big?” asked the Honourable Penelope lazily.     

       “They vary, my dear girl.”      

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