180 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



I embroider the anecdotes that I should relate 

 of him ! " 



I will tell you a little story. 



On one of the most unfortunate nights of my 

 life I reached a certain hotel, believing that I was 

 to entertain to dinner a man who had just 

 descended there. From this festivity I anticipated 

 a great deal of pleasure. The invitation was five 

 years old. For five years I had been hungering 

 for this dinner, at which my dear old Derry and I 

 were going to celebrate his return from the East. 

 He was in this hotel. He had sent me a telegram 

 to say that he was my man for the evening. All 

 the way to the hotel I had cogitated worthy 

 menus. 



As 1 entered the lounge I perceived Derry, 

 and precipitated myself across the intervening 

 space. After we had greeted each other, I found 

 that he was introducing me to Mr. Thorns, just 

 home from the Straits, one of the best, etcetera, 

 etcetera. Mr. Thorns had all the appearance of 

 being that moment landed in England after a 

 protracted sojourn in Asia ; that is to say, his 

 clothes were obviously those in which six or seven 

 years earlier, a slim boy, he had fared forth into the 

 mysterious East. And the East had fattened 

 him. To-morrow he would be at his tailor's, and 

 the day after to-morrow he would be undistinguish- 



