as best we may. Therefore I tossed aside the charred match, and
having searched fruitlessly through my pockets for another, waited
philosophically for some "good Samaritan" to come along. The bank
I have mentioned sloped away gently on my left, thus affording an
uninterrupted view of the path.

Now as my eyes followed this winding path I beheld an individual
some distance away who crawled upon his hands and knees, evidently
searching for something. As I watched, he succeeded in raking a
Panama hat from beneath a bush, and having dusted it carefully with
his handkerchief, replaced it upon his head and continued his
advance.

With some faint hope that there might be a loose match hiding away
in some corner of my pockets, I went through them again more
carefully, but alas! with no better success; whereupon I gave it
up and turned to glance at the approaching figure. My astonishment
may be readily imagined when I beheld him in precisely the same
attitude as before - that is to say, upon his hands and knees.

I was yet puzzling over this phenomenon when he again raked out
the Panama on the end of the hunting-crop he carried, dusted it as
before, looking about him the while with a bewildered air, and
setting it firmly upon his head, came down the path. He was a tall
young fellow, scrupulously neat and well groomed from the polish of
his brown riding boots to his small, sleek moustache, which was
parted with elaborate care and twisted into two fine points. There
was about his whole person an indefinable air of self-complacent
satisfaction, but he carried his personality in his moustache, so
to speak, which, though small, as I say, and precise to a hair,