fishing with Miss Cunyngham), "and I whipped off a good number, so I
want to make amends, don't you see?"

"Very well, sir; how many will I put up?"

"All you've got," was the prompt reply.

Mr. Watson stared.

"Oh, yes," Lionel said. "Miss Cunyngham may as well have a good stock at
once. You know the proper kinds--Blue Doctors, Childerses, Jock Scotts,
Dirty Yellows, Bishops, Bees--that's about it, isn't it?--and put in
plenty of various sizes. Then don't make a parcel of them; put them into
those japanned boxes with the cork in them--never mind how many; and if
you can't tell me at once how much it will all come to, I will leave you
my London address, and you'll send the bill to me. Now if you will be so
kind as to give me a sheet of paper and an envelope, I will write a note
to accompany the packet."

Mr. Watson probably thought that this young man was daft, but it was not
his business to say so; he took down his erratic customer's address and
said that all his instructions would be attended to forthwith.

Next Lionel went to a tobacconist's shop, and (for he was a most lavish
young man) he ordered a prodigious quantity of "twist," which he had
made up into two parcels, the smaller one for Roderick, the larger to be
divided equally among the other keepers and gillies. The two parcels he
had put into a wooden case, which, again, was filled up with boxes of
vesuvians, three or four dozen or so; and it is to be imagined that when
_that_ small hamper was opened at Strathaivron there was many a chuckle
of gratification over the division of the splendid spoil.

Finally--for human nature is but human nature after all; he had been
thinking of others so far, and he was now entitled to consider himself a
little--he thought he would go along to Mr. Macleay's. When he arrived
at the shop, he glanced in at the windows; but among the wild-cats,
ptarmigan, black game, mallards, and what not, there was nothing to
arrest his attention; it was a stag's head he had in his mind. He went
inside, and his first sensation was one of absolute bewilderment. This
crowded museum of birds, beasts, and fish--skarts, goosanders,
sand-grouse, terns, eagles, ospreys, squirrels, foxes, big-snouted
trout, harts, hinds, bucks, does, owls, kestrels, falcons, merlins, and
every variety of the common gull shot by the all-pervading
Cockney--staring, stuffed, silent, they were a confusion to the eyes,
and nowhere could he find his own, his particular