or here has the name of being a good fisherman."

"If he goes poaching," said Meldon, "he'll get the worst of it. The
Major appears to have tried that on, and he simply made things unpleasant
for himself, without annoying Simpkins in the least."

"It's not poaching we're thinking of," said Doyle; "but--you know I'm a
magistrate these times, on account of being the Chairman of the Urban
Council."

"I know that; but if you're thinking of dragging up Simpkins before the
Petty Sessions on a bogus charge, you may as well put the idea out of
your head at once. It won't work. You'll have the Major on the Bench
with you, and though he doesn't like the man, I don't think he'd commit
him to prison for cruelty to children, or breaking windows while under
the influence of drink, or anything of that sort, unless he'd really done
it."

"I wouldn't do the like," said Doyle, "and no more would the doctor."

"Our plan," said the doctor, "is to get a salmon, a large salmon."

"Poach it?" said Meldon.

"No; buy it. Doyle would buy it. Then he'd give it to me in the
presence of several witnesses--"

"Sabina would do for one," said Meldon, "She's a most intelligent girl,
and I'm sure she'd swear anything afterwards that she was wanted to."

"She wouldn't have to swear anything but the truth," said Doyle.

"Of course not," said Meldon. "But lots of people won't do even that."

"I'd go up the river," said Dr. O'Donoghue, "and I'd take my rod and
landing-net and the salmon with me, and I'd sit down on the bank and
wait."

"Simpkins," said Doyle, "does be walking up along the river every
evening, so the doctor wouldn't be there for very long before he'd be
caught."

"I see," said Meldon. "The idea would be for Simpkins to prosecute the
doctor for poaching that salmon, and then to trot out Sabina in court to
prove--"

"Sabina and the rest of the witnesses," said Doyle. "We'd have plenty."

"It's not a bad ambuscade at all," said Meldon.

"The Major," said Doyle, "would talk straight to him off the Bench, the
way he'd feel small; and I'd have a word or two myself to say to him
after the Major was done. And the police would be standing round smiling
like--"

"I can't imagine anything more unpleasant," said Meldon, "than being
grinned at by a policeman. All the same, I think it will be better not
to catch him in that ambuscade."

"And why not?" said Doyle.

"The fact is," said Meldon, "I'm thinking of dealing with