From the old fishing town to South Parade was at least an hour's walk uphill all the way. The whiting began to weigh rather heavily. It was obvious that Jasmine would not be able to carry her bunch, and Harry relieved her of it. After climbing for about five minutes he began to feel that the bunches were more than even he could manage, and pulling off four fish as he would have pulled off four bananas, he offered them to a policeman who was standing at the corner. "Just caught," he explained cheerfully. "Thank you, sir," said the constable. "I'll wrap them up and leave them on this window-sill." "Don't lose them," said Vibart. "They're fresh." "That's all right, sir. I'll wrap them up in the evening paper. I'm not off duty till six." "They'll still be quite fresh then," said Vibart encouragingly. He looked round to see if there was anybody else to whom he could make a present of fresh fish; as there was nobody else in sight, he advised the constable to have two more, and so make up the half-dozen. Another five minutes of slow ascent passed, during which the whiting seemed to have grown into cod. A wretched old woman asleep in an archway, her head bowed in her lap, offered a good opportunity for charity, and Harry was just going to lay a couple of whiting in her lap when Jasmine suggested that if the old woman put her head down any lower she would touch them with her face, which might startle her too much and spoil the pleasure of the surprise. "Well, I'll lay them on the pavement beside her," said Harry. He also put a couple on her other side, so that she would be sure to see them and not miss her breakfast. "It's jolly to think how happy she'll be when she wakes up." "But if she hasn't got anywhere to sleep," Jasmine objected, "I don't suppose she's got anywhere to cook whiting." "Oh yes," he assured her, "she'll get them cooked all right. Oh, rather! She'll find some workmen who are mending the road." "But how will that help her to cook whiting?" "Oh, they always have a fire. I don't know why, but they always do. Still not a carriage to be seen!" The clocks struck a quarter-past one. The whiting had grown from cod to sharks. They toiled on without meeting a soul till the clocks struck the half-hour, and the whiting from sharks were become whales. "It would be a pity to go back without these confounded fish," said Vibart, "because it really was a remarkable catch. Besides, fresh whiting's tremendously good for breakfast. It does seem a most extraordinary thing that there's not a carriage anywhere. I think I'll try another way of carrying them--one on each end of my stick, and then I'll put my stick over my shoulder like a milkmaid."