embroidering their marble temples with gay colors. Did you see that pike break, sir?”
“I did not.”
“Zounds! his silver fin flashed upon the black Acheron, like a restless soul that hoped yet to mount from the pool.”
“The place seems suggestive of fancies to you?” we observed in reply to the rattlepate.
“It is, indeed, for I have done up a good deal of anxious thinking within a circle of a few yards where that fish broke just now.”
“A singular place for meditation—the middle of the Reservoir!”
“You look incredulous, sir; but it's a fact. A fellow can never tell, until he is tried, in what situation his most earnest meditations may be concentrated. I am boring you, though?”
“Not at all. But you seem so familiar with the spot, I wish you could tell me why that ladder leading down to the water is lashed against the stonework in yonder corner.”
“That ladder,” said the young man, brightening at the question—“why, the position, perhaps the very existence, of that ladder resulted from my meditations in the Reservoir, at which you smiled just now. Shall I tell you all about them?”
“Pray do.”
“Well, you have seen the notice forbidding any one to fish in the Reservoir. Now, when I read that warnings the spirit of the thing struck
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