ccess in
transforming a fairly good wife into a ferocious angler, probably the
most instructive is the singular adventure that befell Bolton
Chichester in taking a brief vacation while he was engaged to be
married. And having already told the former story as an example of the
vicissitudes of "Fisherman's Luck," I now propose to narrate the latter
as a striking illustration of what may happen to a man who takes "a day
off."

Chichester is known among his intimate friends as "Chinchin." This
nominal appendix was given to him not in allusion to his habits of
speech, for he is rather a small talker, but with reference to the
prominence of that feature of his countenance which is at once the
organ of utterance, the instrument of mastication, the sign of
firmness, and (at least in the Gibsonian period of facial architecture)
the chief point of manly beauty.

Point is an absurd word to apply to Chichester's chin. It might better
be called a surface, a region, a territory. Smooth, spacious, square,
kept always in perfect order and carried with a what-do-I-care-for-that
air, it gives him a most distinguished appearance, and makes you think,
when you meet him, that you are in the presence of a favourite matinee
actor, the hero of a modern short-story, or a man of remarkable
decision of character.

The last, of course, is the correct interpretation of the sign. Bolton
Chichester is the most decided man that I have ever known. He can make
up his mind more quickly, on a greater variety of subjects, and adhere
to each determination more firmly, than all the other members of the
Petrine Club put together. For this reason we always anticipated for
him a large success in life, and some even predicted that he would
become President of the United States--unless he made up his mind to do
something else on the way to the White House. At all events, we felt
sure, he would get what he wanted; and when he became decidedly
attentive to Ethel Asham it was taken for granted that he would woo,
win, and marry her in short order.

She was rather a difficult person, to be sure; the eldest daughter of
that cryptic old millionaire, Watson Asham, who lived in New York and
resided, for purposes of taxation, at West Smithfield; a graduate of
Brainmore College; president of the Social Settlement of Higher
Lighters; a frequent contributor in brief fiction to the Contrary
Magazine; a beauty of the tea-after-tennis type; the best dancer in St.
Swithin's