you

   ought to do,” to Chilvern: “you ought to go to the Scilly Islands, and see the cows there.”

   Milburd says if it's a question of going to islands, why not to the Isle of Wight and see Cowes there? I laugh, slightly; as it doesn't do to encourage Milburd too much. The others, who are warming with their conversation, treat the joke with silent contempt.

   “There's a larch for you,” cries Chilvern, in admiration of a gigantic fir-tree.

   “That!” exclaims Cazell. “My dear fellow”—whenever he is getting nettled in discussion, he always becomes excessively affectionate in his terms—“My dear fellow, you ought to go to Surrey to see the larches, and the firs.” Boodels observes in a chilly sort of way that he doesn't care for larches,

    or

   firs.

   In order to divert the stream of their conversation, I remark that I have no doubt there's some capital trout fishing about here. I say this on crossing a bridge.

   “Ah!” says Chilvern, “see the trout in Somersetshire. My!

   Why in some places you could catch twenty, with as many flies, all at once.”

   Cazell tops this without a pause; he says, “Ah! if you want trout you should go to Shropshire. I

    never

   saw such a place for trout. You've only got to put your hand down, and you can take them asleep in the ditches.”

   Milburd exclaims incredulously, “Oh yes,” meaning, “Oh no.”

   “My dear boy,” says Cazell, emphatically, “I assure you it's a known thing. Tell a Shropshire man about trout in any other county, and he'll laugh in your face.”

   Except for politeness, we feel, all of us, a strong inclination to act like the ideal Shropshire man, under the present circumstances.

   We enter an avenue.

   The driver tells us we are approaching the house. We pass a large pond partially concealed by trees. In the centre there is an island with a sort of small ruined castle on it. It is, as it were, a Castle for One.

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