"Ancient history--ancient history," roared Macandrew, like an angry bull, "but your advice, Jerry?" "Chuck Charity and marry your cousin," said Haskins tersely. "I won't." "Then why waste my time in asking for advice which you have no notion of taking? Go on your own silly way, Tod, and don't blame me if you tumble into a quagmire of troubles." "I believe you want to marry Charity yourself," shouted Tod angrily. "No I don't," cried Haskins, feeling if his garments were dry. "She is all that one can desire in the way of beauty: but I want something more than a picture-wife. Marriages are made in heaven, and Charity's soul does not respond to mine." Tod rose sulkily and dressed himself. When clothed again he took up the discarded rod to try his luck. "I love her," he boomed, and cast his fly with the air of a man who has brought forward an unanswerable argument. Perhaps he had, for Macandrew was as obstinate as a battery-mule. Seeing that Tod's attention was taken up with a peaceful sport which precluded retaliation for the late ducking, Gerald made his trousers and shirt into a ball, and flung them deftly across the river. They hit Tod fairly, and made him stagger and swear. What he would have said or done, it is impossible to say, for at this moment he proclaimed with a triumphant yell that he had a bite. And at this moment Gerald slipped into the water again. "Hang it, don't," screamed Macandrew, "you'll frighten the fish off the hook. Woosh! Come up!" and Tod tugged hard while the rod bent to an arc. "Mighty big fish," breathed the angler. "Don't believe it's a fish at all," spluttered Haskins, seeing that the line remained stationary, "you're making no play. Caught a weed maybe." He swam to the line, and dived under, while Macandrew danced and swore on the bank. "Leave it alone, leave it alone," cried Tod, in high wrath, "it's a big fish. Oh, beast; oh, animal: oh, jealous reptile," he went on as the line slackened, "you've done it." Even as he spoke Gerald rose to the surface, spitting water from his mouth. In his right hand he held an object which he flung on to the bank, and then crawled up himself. "There's your fish, Tod," he said, rolling on the grass to dry himself, "your hook caught in that cylinder, which had got wedged between two big stones. Look at it while I dress." Tod handled the cylinder gingerly. It was made of tin, and had apparently been covered with brown paper, for the remains of this clung loose at either end from under splotches of red sealing-wax. Oddly enough, there was also a string tied to the cylinder, at the end of which dangled the remnant of a bladder. Evidently the bladder had borne up the somewhat heavy cylinder for a certain time, and then had burst, to drop it toward the big stones amid which it had been wedged when Tod's hook had caught it. "Look's like a parcel of dynamite," said Tod, in a nervous tone; "poachers fishing by night with dynamite, O Lord!"