128 AN ANGLER'S HOURS vm 



on the three seats that showed where the 

 esplanade should be in time to come. In a 

 word, Pebbleville was the very place. 



And yet the angler was dissatisfied, un- 

 reasonably dissatisfied, for had he not been 

 at some pains to find a spot where his great 

 literary undertaking should be inaugurated 

 between the sea and the sky, a spot where 

 no distractions could exist, a spot where 

 thought should be trammelled by no worldly 

 considerations whatsoever ? And to this 

 end had he not put rods and tackle firmly 

 away and disregarded all advertisements that 

 contained the word " fishing " ? So now he 

 was in the exact haven of his desire, and not 

 at all pleased with it. Frowning at the 

 fishless sea (if it were not fishless it was, at 

 any rate, unfishable, for Pebbleville possessed 

 no pier, no jetty, and no boats), he turned 

 gloomily in the direction of the winter 

 garden that is to say, in the direction of 

 what would some day be the winter garden ; 

 at present it was a large piece of gorse-clad 

 common land, enclosed in a wire fence, and 

 adorned with eleven small Christmas trees, 

 the first beginnings of a plantation. Passing 

 round the Christmas trees he found his path 



