"Prosper and I will provide them to-morrow," my father answered, with a careless glance at me. "And now, my friends, we have talked over-long of Corsica and nothing as yet of that companionship which brings us here--it may be for the last time. Priske, you may open another four bottles and leave us. Gervase, take down the book from the cupboard and let the Vicar read to us while the light allows." "The marker tells me," said the Vicar, taking the book and opening it, "that we left in the midst of Chapter 8--_On the Luce or Pike_. "Ay, and so I remember," my uncle agreed. The Vicar began to read-- "'And for your dead bait for a pike, for that you may be taught by one day's going a-fishing with me or any other body that fishes for him; for the baiting of your hook with a dead gudgeon or a roach and moving it up and down the water is too easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it. And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a secret. It is this: Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your dead bait for a pike, and then cast it into a likely place, and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water and so up the stream, and it is more than likely that you have a pike follow with more than common eagerness. And some affirm that any bait anointed with the marrow of the thigh-bone of a heron is a great temptation to any fish. "'These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of mine, that pretended to do me a courtesy. But if this direction to catch a pike thus do you no good, yet I am certain this direction how to roast him when he is caught is choicely good--'" "Upon my soul, brother," interrupted my uncle Gervase, removing the pipe from his mouth, "this reads like a direction for the taking of Corsica." CHAPTER VII. THE COMPANY OF THE ROSE. "Alway be merry if thou may, But waste not thy good alway: Have hat of floures fresh as May, Chapelet of roses of Whitsonday For sich array ne costneth but lyte." _Romaunt of the Rose_. _Somerset_. "Let him that is no coward Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me." _First Part of King Henry VI_. Early next morning I was returning, a rosebud in my hand, from the neglected garden to the east of the house, when I spied my father coming towards me along the terraces, and at once felt my ears redden. "Good morning, lad!" he hailed. "But where is mine?" I turned back in silence and picked a bud for him. "So," said I, "'twas you, sir, after all, that wrote the advertisement?" "Hey?" he answered. "I? Certainly not. I noted it and sent you the news-sheet in half a hope that you had been the advertiser."