fisherman. "I have a sort of hobby about what they call 'phenomena
of phosphorescence.' But it would be rather awkward to go about in
society carrying stinking fish."

"I suppose it would," said March, with a smile.

"Rather odd to enter a drawing-room carrying a large luminous cod,"
continued the stranger, in his listless way. "How quaint it would
be if one could carry it about like a lantern, or have little sprats
for candles. Some of the seabeasts would really be very pretty like
lampshades; the blue sea-snail that glitters all over like
starlight; and some of the red starfish really shine like red stars.
But, naturally, I'm not looking for them here."

March thought of asking him what he was looking for; but, feeling
unequal to a technical discussion at least as deep as the deep-sea
fishes, he returned to more ordinary topics.

"Delightful sort of hole this is," he said. "This little dell and
river here. It's like those places Stevenson talks about, where
something ought to happen."

"I know," answered the other. "I think it's because the place
itself, so to speak, seems to happen and not merely to exist.
Perhaps that's what old Picasso and some of the Cubists are trying
to express by angles and jagged lines. Look at that wall like low
cliffs that juts forward just at right angles to the slope of turf
sweeping up to it. That's like a silent collision. It's like a
breaker and the back-wash of a wave."