information on stable and garage matters, had brought him quite
comfortably up to four o'clock, when, as he idled across the lawn, that
rum old carp had caught, and held, his eye.

It was a very warm day in October, a day most unusual in its mellow
beauty; soft sunshine lay on the lawn and lent splendour to the not very
large Tudor house off to the left.

The air of gentle, self-satisfied decrepitude worn by the old place was
for the moment lost, and it looked new, clean-cut and almost gaudy, as
it must have done in the distant days when it was young. It was a
becoming day for the ancient building, as candle-light is becoming to an
old beauty and brings back a fleeting and pathetic air of youth to her
still lovely features.

Above, the sky was very blue, and the ruminating silence was broken only
by the honk-honk of a distant motor. The carp, impeded in his lethargic
progress by the thick stem of a water-lily, had stood still (if a fish
can be said to stand) for a century--nearly five minutes--his silly old
nose pointing stubbornly at the obstacle.

"_It_ won't move, so you'll have to," observed Kingsmead, wriggling a
little nearer, "Oh, I say _do_ buck up, or you'll never get there----"

And the carp, quite as if he understood, did buck up, and slid away into
the shadow of the rhododendrons.

Kingsmead rose slowly and picked up his cap. What should he do next? The
puppies weren't bad, nor the new under-gardener who swore so awfully at
his inferior, nor----