"My dear Major, I hope so--I sincerely hope so," Mr. Fossell answered, with a humorous look around him. "I do most sincerely trust we may be able to meet your demand for--let me see, fifteen-eighteen-six, is it not?--without being forced to put up the shutters." Mr. Fossell chuckled quietly. The Commandant drew a long breath. "Always supposing," resumed Mr. Fossell, "that the draft is in order, as usual; on which point, to tell you the truth, I have been too busy to satisfy myself. But the paper arrived two days ago, and is in my office--if you will excuse me for a moment." He stepped towards a door at the back, panelled with frosted glass, opened it, and disappeared into his office. The Commandant waited. Three minutes passed. "Very fine weather, sir, for the time of the year," said the clerk, blotting an entry and looking up from his ledger. "Eh? Oh, certainly ... yes, very fine indeed." The Commandant recalled himself with a painful effort. "And the glass steady as a rock." The clerk closed a smaller book at his elbow and replaced it in a line of similar volumes on a shelf above the desk behind him. "I saw you out, sir, in your boat, the day before yesterday, to the west of Saaron--fishing for bass, or so I took the liberty of guessing." "For bass?... Yes, oh, most decidedly." "Knowing fish, the bass!" hazarded the young man, combing his side-locks with his pen and carefully bestowing it behind his ear. "You found the water a bit too clear, sir, I expect?" "So far as I remember--" began the Commandant, and paused. (What on earth was delaying Fossell?) "You will excuse me, sir, but might I ask what bait you employ as a rule?" The Commandant answered that for preference he used sand-eels. The clerk replied that sand-eels took some getting; and that, if the remark wouldn't be taken amiss, it was all very well to talk of sand-eels when you were in a position to employ a couple of men to spend half a day in netting them for you; but that for a young chap in his position, sand-eels were out of the question. "There's the bank-hours, to begin with," he wound up, lucidly; "and, besides, when you've caught 'em they're the most perishable bait going." The Commandant incoherently promised to reserve a portion of his next catch, and to send Archelaus with a creelful; all this with his eyes wandering in desperation to the glass door. The young man was profuse in thanks. "You will excuse my discussing sport with you, sir? Sport, they say, puts all men on a level--though, of course, I should not dream of claiming----" But at this point the glass door opened, and Mr. Fossell emerged, briskly, holding what appeared to be a fair-sized stone. "How will you take it?" he asked, depositing this upon the counter. "I beg your pardon?" the Commandant stammered, his eyes riveted on the stone.