68 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



denly : " Thirteen and seventeen are only thirty, 

 sir, and I have been told I do not look near that 

 age and that no one would imagine that I was the 

 mother of six children." 



Another time of silence followed and another 

 change of mood. 



Our lunch was a happy one and it was a sweet 

 cigar, so the wife said, that I smoked while she 

 talked and added to her crochet work. Amongst 

 other things she told me that I was looking better, 

 getting quite a colour, and then, in quite a different 

 voice: "Why, Phil, you have grey hairs. That's 

 worry and long hours in horrible, smoky London. 

 I wish we had been farmers. What will be the use 

 of money when health is gone ? " 



I did not answer, for my early rising, with its 

 excitement, the murmurs of the weir, my comfort- 

 able position and the wife's soothing voice, caused 

 me to slip away in sleep. How long I slept or how 

 great the burden of my head had grown the selfish 

 man would probably never have asked, but, 

 fortunately for love's long-suffering, the sleep was 

 broken by : Hullo there ! Hullo, you fishers ! We 

 have brought some tea and cakes. Hullo ! where 

 are the fish ? " 



Our host and hostess as they stepped from the 

 waggonette were in no way an unusual couple to 

 look upon for they had paired as is the custom, the 

 longest with the shortest. The deity supposed 

 to be responsible for this should be pleased with 

 the result as the love of the six feet three of man 

 for the five feet one of woman was great, while his 

 fair-haired, sweet-tempered, little wife loved every 

 inch of her slim giant with only this reservation 



