Dinner and luncheon is different, and he
may expect to go to the inn for them."
"Indeed!" said I. "I think he may, and if he breakfasts here he can
take what we've got. If the eggs are not fresh enough for him he can
try to get along with some bacon. He can't expect that to be fresh."
Knowing that English people take their breakfast late, Jone and I got
up early, so as to get through before our lodger came down. But, bless
me, when we went to the front door to see what sort of a day it was we
saw him coming in from a walk. "Fine morning," said he, and in fact
there was only a little drizzle of rain, which might stop when the sun
got higher; and he stood near us and began to talk about the trout in
the stream, which, to my utter amazement, he called a river.
"Do you take your license by the day or week?" he said to Jone.
"License!" said Jone, "I don't fish."
"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Poplington. "Oh, I see, you are a cycler."
"No," said Jone, "I'm not that, either, I'm a pervader."
"Really!" said the old gentleman; "what do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I pervade the scenery, sometimes on foot and sometimes in
a trap. That's my style of rural pleasuring."
"But you do fish at home," I said to Jone, not wishing the English
gentleman to think my husband was a city man, who didn't know anything
about sport.
