if you believe me."

"And a jack, uncle," put in Minnie, who liked to please the old man.
"Doesn't a jack pull hard?"

"Well, it's like this, my dear; it depends on the bottom when it's
jack. If the bottom's weedy--see?--you must keep your line tight on a
jack. Let him run and you're as like as not to lose thirty or forty
yards of your line."

"And the lines are expensive, aren't they, uncle?"

"Well, my dear, I give eighteen and six for my preserved jack
line--hundred yards. Eighteen and six!"

There followed one of his old stories, of a jack which had been eating
up young ducklings on a certain pond; how he had baited for this fellow
with a live duckling, the hook through the tips of its wings, got him
in twenty minutes, and he turned the scale at four-and-twenty pounds.
Roach and perch were afterwards discussed. In Mr. Sparkes' opinion the
best bait for these fish was a bit of dough kneaded up with loose wool.
Chaffey's--at all events, Chaffey's of to-day--would not have known its
head waiter could it have seen and heard him as he thus held forth. The
hostess showed a fear lest Mr. Nelson should have more than enough of
Cockney angling; but he and Minnie were at one in good-natured
attentiveness, and in the end Mrs. Clover overcame her uneasiness.

A few days after this Minnie's mother, overcoming a secret scruple and
yielding to a long desire, allowed herself to write a letter to Mr.
Gammon. It was a very simple, not ill-composed letter; its object to
express regret for the ill temper she had shown, now many weeks ago, on
her parting with Mr. Gammon in Kennington Road. Would he not look in at
the china shop just in the old way? It would please her very much, for
indeed she had never meant or dreamt a termination to their friendship.
They had known each other so long. Would not Mr. Gammon overlook her
foolishness, remembering all she had had to go through? So she signed
herself his "friend always the same," and having done so looked at the
last line rather timidly, and made haste to close the letter.

An answer arrived without undue delay, and Mrs. Clover went apart to
read it, her breath quicker than usual, and her fingers tremulous. Mr.
Gammon wrote with unfeigned cordiality, just like himself. He hoped to
call very soon, though it might still be a few weeks. There was nothing
to forgive on his part; he wasn't such a fool as to be angry with an
old friend for a few hasty words. But the truth was he had a lo