pages of a
small, green-covered book, made negative the first analysis. A little
distance from him, where the sun beat down warmly, unhindered by any
shade, lolled a colored man whose look now and then strayed to the
reading figure.

A glance over the shoulder of the reader, were one so impolite as to
take that liberty, would have disclosed, among others, this passage on
the printed page:

"But yet you are to note, that as you see some willows or
palm trees bud and blossom sooner than others do, so some
trouts be, in rivers, sooner in season; and as some hollies
or oaks are longer before they cast their leaves, so are
some trouts in rivers longer before they go out of season."

The gray-haired man closed the book, thereby revealing the title
"Walton's Compleat Angler," and looked across the stream. The sunlight
flickered over its rippling surface, and now and then there was a
splash in the otherwise quiet waters--a splash that to the reader was
illuminating indeed.

"Shag!" he suddenly exclaimed, thereby galvanizing into life the
somnolent negro.

"Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah!" came the response.

"Hum! Asleep, weren't you?"

"Well, no, sah. Not zactly asleep, Colonel. I were jest takin' the fust
of mab forty winks, an'--"

"Well, postpone the rest for this evening. I think I'll make some
casts here. I don't expect any trout, my friend Walton to the contrary.
Besides they're out of season now. But I may get something. Get me the
rod, Shag!"

"Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah!"

And while the fishing paraphernalia was being put in readiness by his
colored servant, Colonel Robert Lee Ashley once more opened the little
green book, as though to draw inspiration therefrom. And he read:

"Only thus much is necessary for you to know, and to be
mindful and careful of, that if the pike or perch do breed
in that river, they will be sure to bite first and must
first be taken. And for the most part they are very large."

"Well, large or small, it doesn't much matter, so I catch some,"
observed the colonel.

Then he carefully baited the hook, after he had taken the rod and line
from Shag, who handled it as though it was a rare object of art; which,
indeed, it was to his master.

"I think we shall go back with a fine mess of perch, Shag," observed the
fisherman.

"Yes, sah, Colonel, dat's what we will," was the cheerful answer.

"And this time we won't, under any consid