XXX. ABOUT A CARDIGAN JACKET How ANGLERS' 

 WIVES GET BLAMED. 



* * T OST, stolen, or left behind" a Cardigan jacket. 

 I ,. Yes, George McNab, your own veritable chest 

 warmer, which on your solemn word and most 

 trustworthy memory you swore you remembered packing with 

 your own hands into your Gladstone bag when leaving the 

 Trent-side hostelry after a week's fishing in the old river last 

 August, and yet, on going for a few days' outing this last 

 January for a bit of winter fishing to the same old spot, sure 

 and behold there's something hanging on the peg in the bed- 

 room which is dangerously like the Cardigan jacket in 

 question, and beyond a bit of mildew, why it is the same 

 identical jacket ; and your good little housewife George ! how 

 she has been hustled and bustled upside and downside the 

 house since August last to find that Cardigan jacket. She 

 must have given it away to some wealthy relation, or packed it 

 away in a drawer or a trunk and forgotten all about it. Yes, 

 George, you were quite sure you had brought it away from 

 the Trent; if there was one thing more than another you 

 remembered it was putting it in the Gladstone bag the very 

 first thing you packed. But anyhow, George, now that it was 

 actually left behind at Trent-side, it won't do for your missus 

 (for she ts missus you know) to know you have found it there, 

 there'll be ructions if you do, you must dissemble, this is 



what you must do 



" Well, Mr. Hopper," said George McNab, " if you don't 

 mind I've a little plan of my own, I quite agree it would never do 

 for the Cardigan jacket to turn up immediately on my return 

 from my winter outing to Trent-side. It would be altogether 

 too suspicious and I should never hear the last of it. She's a 

 good little woman as you know, but she does like to get on the 

 rough side of me and have the chaff on her side, and I can't 

 stand that. Now, my plan is this I mustn't pack it in my 



