As one looked down upon the face of these waters, so strangely heartened by the sunlight, a sort of certainty grew upon him that they would break suddenly into perspective; that their vista would cease to be obscured by coal wharves and cranes and hoardings; that somebody’s whisky, commended to your notice in large white letters on a blue-enamelled background, would fade and fade and fade, until it merged with the white clouds and the blue sky behind it. Then need you but sigh and sit back, beholding a silver streak set snugly between hills, and flowing, flowing, flowing to the edge of the world. Instead of which—— Pooh! There was no instead. The April sun kept winking at the daffodils, and the daffodils kept staring at the sun, and the cornet-man made music by the waterside. So that even a poet might have smiled at it all. For here, I’ll swear, was none of your mere "waterways," created by syndicates for profit; here was none of your world capitals. Just a little old river, sunning itself gratefully in a little old town that God had made. And, as if to strengthen this conceit, a woman came up through the hatchway of a barge that I was looking at. She was wearing a sun-bonnet, in accordance with the custom of barge-women, and she stood up gracefully, one hand on her hip, the other before her eyes, to seek out the cornet player. We are the boys of the bulldawg breed What’s made ole Hengland’s Nime. Those were the words which had inspired the melody which the cornet-blower was blowing. The woman tapped her foot in time with the notes. Her husband came up then, accompanied by tobacco clouds and a baby. He seemed to be a fortunate sort of husband, for I noticed that the woman laughed appreciatively at some joke which he made. Then the man’s eye wandered to the canal-side, and he caught sight of the daffodil-girl, who was standing there. And what must the fellow do but throw kisses to her, which gallantry was reciprocated by the flower-girl. The barge-woman laughed at this new jest with even more good humour (if that were possible) than that which she had shown before. The man shouted some message or other to the flower-girl, and she replied, whereupon he handed the baby to his wife, saying, "Catch ’old, Fatty!"—an utterance which I heard without hearing, as one can when an April sun is shining on men’s hearts. And, advancing to the side of the boat, the man held out his arms, and the girl threw daffodils towards him. The first bloom fell into the water, and the second; the third he caught. One more poor daffodil was drowned, and he caught the two next. So that there was one for his cap, and one for the missus, and one for the baby, who, being now safely delivered from the paternal arms (which were not built for cradling babies), needed but the additional stimulus of a yellow thing to marvel at ere it smiled as largely as any of them.