"H'm, perch! I am sorry we can't do better for you, guests. The
time was when we might have had a good piece of salmon up from London
for you; but the times have grown mean and petty."

"Yes, but you might have had it now," said the girl, giggling, "if
you had known that they were coming."

"It's our fault for not bringing it with us, neighbours," said Dick,
good-humouredly. "But if the times have grown petty, at any rate the
perch haven't; that fellow in the middle there must have weighed a
good two pounds when he was showing his dark stripes and red fins to
the minnows yonder. And as to the salmon, why, neighbour, my friend
here, who comes from the outlands, was quite surprised yesterday
morning when I told him we had plenty of salmon at Hammersmith. I am
sure I have heard nothing of the times worsening."

He looked a little uncomfortable. And the old man, turning to me,
said very courteously:

"Well, sir, I am happy to see a man from over the water; but I really
must appeal to you to say whether on the whole you are not better off
in your country; where I suppose, from what our guest says, you are
brisker and more alive, because you have not wholly got rid of
competition. You see, I have read not a few books of the past days,
and certainly THEY are much more alive than those which are written
now; and good sound unlimited competition was the condition under
which they were written,--if we didn't know that from the record of
history, we should know it from the books themselves. There is a
spirit of adventure in them, and signs of a capacity to extract good
out of evil which our literature quite lacks now; and I cannot help