no ANGLING SKETCHES 



This was the story which I read in the news- 

 paper during breakfast one morning in November. 

 I was deeply grieved, rather than astonished, for 

 I have often remonstrated with poor Grannom on 

 the recklessness of his wading. It was ^-ith some 

 surprise that I received, in the course of the da)-, 

 a letter from him, in which he spoke only of in- 

 different matters, of the fishing which he had taken, 

 and so forth. The letter was accompanied, how- 

 ever, b\" a parcel. Tearing off the outer cover, I 

 found a sealed document addressed to me, with 

 the superscription, ' Not to be opened until after 

 my father's decease.' This injunction, of course, I 

 have scrupulousl)- obe\-ed. The death of Lord 

 Whitchurch, the last of the Grannoms, now gives 

 me liberty to publish my friend's Apologia pro 

 viorte et vita sua. 



' Dear Smith ' (the document begins), ' Before 

 you read this — long before, I hope — I shall have 

 solved the great mj-stery — if, indeed, we solve 

 it. If the water runs down to-morrow, and there 

 is every prospect that it will do so, I must have 

 the opportunity of making such an end as even 



