"It was a reward for a kind action," he explained. "The place belongs to an old boy called Quinn--Sir Cuthbert Quinn. I ran across him last week in a country lane near Bedford, trying to find out what was the matter with his car. He'd been trying for some time. Well, I hopped out and put things straight--it was only a choked jet, but he was so grateful that he insisted on my coming back to lunch with him. While we were lunching, we got on the subject of salmon fishing. I happened to say how keen I was, and then he trotted out the fact that he owned an island with a bungalow on it and two miles of the best fishing above Symonds Yat. 'Would you like a week-end there?' he said. 'I should,' said I, 'very much.' Well, to cut a long yarn short, he handed me over the key, and told me I could come up for a couple of days and bring another rod with me. I couldn't think of any one else at the time, so I wired for Mortimer." "Thanks," said Mortimer drily. "Well, as you've got Mortimer," I observed, "you can't take me." "Oh, that's all right," put in Mortimer; "I don't fish. I've only come for the charm of Tommy's conversation." "I haven't got a rod," I objected. "That doesn't matter," said Tommy, "neither have I. But there are two up there which old Quinn said we could use." "How are we going to manage about grub?" I asked. Mortimer laughed. "The car's stuffed with it," he said, "especially drink." That decided me. "I'll come," I said, "but you'll have to call for my traps. I'm staying up in Clifton, so it's all on the way." "Good!" cried Tommy. "You buck up and finish your lunch, while we go round to the garage and get the car." The car, when it arrived, proved to be a 12-14 De Dion which had apparently been a stranger to the sunny land of France for many strenuous years. In colour it had once been green. "Not much to look at," said Tommy apologetically; "but she goes--eh, Mortimer?" "She would if I had her," admitted Mortimer, "for what she'd fetch." Knowing, however, of Tommy's amazing genius for coaxing motion out of discarded scrap-iron, I got in behind without a qualm. With a fanfare on the horn, we slid out of the garage, and then, clanking like an ironmonger's shop in an earthquake, pounded bravely up Park Street at a surprising velocity. It only took me about five minutes to cast my week-end trappings into a Gladstone bag and square accounts with the worthy lady at whose house I had been staying. Then off we thundered again through the peaceful respectabilities of Clifton and Redland, out on to the far-flung road that wanders northwards up the Severn Valley.