you
the more readily for advice. I find it hard to concentrate my
attention this morning."

"Ef I mou't make free to shake 'ee agen--"

"I should prefer any other cure."

"Very well, sir. I _have_ heerd, from trippers as comes to Troy, to
spend the day an' get drunk in anuther parish for vari'ty's sake, as
a pennorth o' say es uncommon refreshin'."

"A pennyworth of sea?"

"That's so, sir. Twelve in a boat, an' a copper a head to the
boatman to row so far as there an' back, which es cheap an' empt'in'
at the price, as a chap told me."

"You advise me to take a row?"

"Iss, sir; on'y I reckon you'd best go up the river, ef you'm goin'
alone. Though whether you prefers the resk o' meetin' Adm'ral Buzza
to bein' turned topsy-versy outside the harbour-mouth, es a question
I leaves to you. 'Tes a matter o' taste, as Mounseer said by the
yaller frog."

Mr. Fogo decided to risk an encounter with the Admiral. In a few
minutes he was afloat, and briskly rowing in the wake of the
picnic-party.

But black Care, that clambers aboard the sea-going galley, did not
disdain a seat in the stern of Mr. Fogo's boat. She sat her down
there, and would not budge for all his pulling. Neither could the
smile of the clear sky woo her thence, nor the voices of the day; but
as on ship-board she must still be talking to the man at the wheel,
and on horseback importunately whispering to the rider from her
pillion, so now she besieged the ear of Mr. Fogo, to whom her very
sex was hateful.

Further and further he rowed in vain attempt to shake off this
incubus; passed at some distance the rock where the picnickers had
spread their meal (luckily, the Admiral's back was turned to the
river), doubled the next bend, ran his boat ashore on a little patch
of shingle overarched with trees, and, stepping out, sat down to
smoke a pipe.

Secure from observation, he could hear the laughter of the picnickers
borne melodiously through the trees; and either this or the tobacco
chased his companion from his side; for his brow cleared, the puffs
of smoke came more calmly, and before the pipe was smoked out, Mr.
Fogo had sunk into a most agreeable fit of abstraction.

He was rudely aroused by the sound of voices close at hand.
Indeed, the speakers were but a few yards off, on the bank above him.

Now Mr. Fogo was the last man to desire to overhear a conversation.
But the first word echoed so aptly his late musings, and struck his
memory,