He angled for him next day accordingly. A little table was taken out on the lawn, and presently Mr. Rolfe issued forth in a uniform suit of dark blue flannel and a sombrero hat, and set to work writing a novel in the sun. Reginald in due course descried this figure, and it smacked so of that Bohemia to which his own soul belonged that he was attracted thereby, but made his approaches stealthily, like a little cat. Presently a fiddle went off behind a tree, so close that the novelist leaped out of his seat with an eldrich screech; for he had long ago forgotten all about Mr. Reginald, and, when he got heated in this kind of composition, any sudden sound seemed to his tense nerves and boiling brain about ten times as loud as it really was. Having relieved himself with a yell, he sat down with the mien of a martyr expecting tortures; but he was most agreeably disappointed; the little monster played an English melody, and played it in tune. This done, he whistled a quick tune, and played a slow second to it in perfect harmony; this done, he whistled the second part and played the quick treble--a very simple feat, but still ingenious for a boy, and new to his hearer. “Bravo! bravo!” cried Rolfe, with all his heart, Mr. Reginald emerged, radiant with vanity. “You are like me, Mr. Writer,” said he; “you don't like to be cooped up in-doors.” “I wish I could play the fiddle like you, my fine fellow.” “Ah, you can't do that all in a minute; see the time I have been at it.” “Ah, to be sure, I forgot your antiquity.” “And it isn't the time only; it's giving your mind to it, old chap.” “What, you don't give your mind to your books, then, as you do to your fiddle, _young gentleman?”_ “Not such a flat. Why, lookee here, governor, if you go and give your mind to a thing you don't like, it's always time wasted, because some other chap, that does like it, will beat you, and what's the use working for to be beat?” “'For' is redundant,” objected Rolfe. “But if you stick hard to the things you like, you do 'em downright well. But old people are such fools, they always drive you the wrong way. They make the gals play music six hours a day, and you might as well set the hen bullfinches to pipe. Look at the gals as come here, how they rattle up and down the piano, and can't make it sing a morsel. Why, they _couldn't_ rattle like that, if they'd music in their skins, d--n 'em; and they drive me to those stupid books, because I'm all for music and moonshine. Can you keep a secret?” “As the tomb.” “Well, then, I can do plenty of things well, besides fiddling; I can set a wire with any poacher in the parish. I have caught plenty of our old man's hares in my time; and it takes a workman to set a wire as it should be. Show me a wire, and I'll tell you whether it was Hudson, or Whitbeck, or Squinting Jack, or who it was that set it. I know all their work that walks by moonlight hereabouts.”