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sunrise and going in at sunset."
The old man on the island had indeed risen to his
feet, facing round and showing a bush of gray beard
with rather small, sunken features, but fierce
eyebrows and keen, choleric eyes. Carefully carrying
his fishing tackle, he was already making his way
back to the mainland across a bridge of flat stepping-stones a
little way down the shallow stream; then he
veered round, coming toward his guests and civilly
saluting them. There were several fish in his basket
and he was in a good temper.
"Yes," he said, acknowledging Fisher's polite
expression of surprise, "I get up before anybody
else in the house, I think. The early bird catches
the worm."
"Unfortunately," said Harker, "it is the early fish
that catches the worm."
"But the early man catches the fish," replied the old man,
gruffly.
"But from what I hear, Sir Isaac, you are the late
man, too," interposed Fisher. "You must do with very
little sleep."
"I never had much time for sleeping," answered
Hook, "and I shall have to be the late man to-night,
anyhow. The Prime Minister wants to have a talk, he
tells me, and, all things considered, I think we'd better
be dressing for dinner."
Dinner passed off that evening without a word
of politics and little enough but ceremonial trifles.
The Prime Minister, Lord Merivale, who was a
long, slim man with curly gray hair, was gravely
complimentary to his host about his success as a
fisherman and the skill and patience he displayed;
the conversation flowed like the shallow stream
through the stepping-stones.
"It wants patience to wait for them, no doubt," said
Sir Isaac, "and skill to play them, but I'm generally
pretty lucky at it."
"Does a big fish ever break the line and get
away?" inquired the politician, with respectful
interest.
"Not the sort of line I use," answered Hook, with
satisfaction. "I rather specialize in tackle, as a matter
of fact. If he were strong enough to do that, he'd be
strong enough to pull me into the river."
"A great loss to the community," said the Prime
Minister, bowing.
Fisher had listened to all these futilities with
inward impatience, waiting for his own opportunity,
and when the host rose he sprang to his feet with an
alertness he rarely showed. He managed to catch
Lord Merivale before Sir Isaac bore him off for the
final interview. He had only a few words to say, but
he wanted to get them said.
He said, in a low voice as he opened the door for
the Premier, "I have seen Montmirail; he says that
unless we protest immediately on behalf of Denmark,
Sweden will certainly seize the ports."
Lord Merivale nodded. "I'm just going to hear
what Hook has to say about it," he said.
"I imagine," said Fisher, with a faint smile, "that
there is very little doubt what he will say about it."
Merivale did not answer, but lounged gracefully
toward the library, whither his host had already
preceded him. The rest drifted toward the billiard
room, Fisher merely remarking to the lawyer: "They
won't be long. We know they're practically in
agreement."
"Hook entirely supports the Prime Minister,"
assented Harker.
"Or the Prime Minister entirely supports Hook,"
said Horne Fisher, and began idly to knock the balls
about on the billiard table.
Horne Fisher came down next morning in a late
and leisurely fashion, as was his reprehensible habit;
he had evidently no appetite for catching worms. But
the other guests seemed to have felt a similar
indifference, and they helped themselves to breakfast
from the sideboard at intervals during the hours
verging upon lunch. So that it was not many hours
later when the first sensation of that strange day
came upon them. It came in the form of a young man
with light hair and a candid expression, who came
sculling down the river and disembarked at the
landing stage. It was, in fact, no other than Mr.
Harold March, whose journey had begun far away up
the river in the earliest hours of that day. He arrived
late in the afternoon, having stopped for tea in a
large riverside town, and he had a pink evening paper
sticking out of his pocket. He fell on the riverside
garden like a quiet and well-behaved thunderbolt, but
he was a thunderbolt without knowing it.
The first exchange of salutations and introductions
was commonplace enough, and consisted,
indeed, of the inevitable repetition of excuses for the
eccentric seclusion of the host. He had gone fishing
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