roposed to live at Muttle Deeping, at
any rate for a while. It had always been their keen desire to fish the
Grange water, for it had been carefully preserved and little fished all
the years Sir James had been wandering about the world. But Mr.
Hilton, the steward of the Grange estate, had always refused their
request. He believed that their presence would be good neither for the
stream, the fish, nor the estate.

But now that they were no longer dealing with an underling whom they
felt to be prejudiced, but with the owner himself, they thought that
they might be able to compass their desire. Also they felt that the
sooner they made the attempt to do so the better: Sir James might hear
unfavorable accounts of them, if they gave him time to consort freely
with his neighbors. Therefore, with the help of their literary
mainstay, Wiggins, they composed a honeyed letter to him, asking leave
to fish the Grange water. Sir James consulted Mr. Hilton about the
letter, received an account of the Twins from him which made him loath
indeed to give them leave; and since he had used a pen so little for so
many years that it had become distasteful to him to use it at all, he
left their honeyed missive unanswered.

The Twins waited patiently for an answer for several days. Then it was
slowly borne in upon them that Sir James did not mean to answer their
letter at all; and they grew very angry indeed. Their anger was in
close proportion to the pains they had spent on the letter. The name
of Sir James was added to the list of proscribed persons they carried
in their retentive minds.

It did not seem likely that they would get any chance of punishing him
for the affront he had put on them. Scorching, in his feverish,
Central African way, along the road to Rowington in a very powerful
motor-car, he looked well beyond their reach. But Fortune favors the
industrious who watch their chances; and one evening Erebus came
bicycling swiftly up to the cats' home, and cried:

"As I came over Long Ridge I saw Sir James Morgan poaching old
Glazebrook's water!"

The Terror did not cease from carefully considering the kitten in his
hands, for he was making a selection to send to Rowington market.

"Are you sure?" he said calmly. "It's a long way from the ridge to the
stream."

"Not for my eyes!" said Erebus with some measure of impatience in her
tone. "I'm quite sure that it was Sir James; and I'm quite sure that
it was old Glazeb