A Story for Christmastide Reading: An Episode in the Career of a Confirmed Fisherman By Prscaron Tt was indeed a wonderful dawn. The lake lay like a mirror set in a frame of purple hills, hills of that expression in the Dictares of Ohinese artists, grotesquely over. hung! The distant islands lay hidden in the mist, and the faint reverberance of a temple gong came sighing across the water, the veritable ghost of a sound. High in the clear air above, a pair of paddy-birds winged their silver way to some distant feeding-ground. T'was fishing with a paste of flour and water, which Is, perhaps, the most universal Dait in China. My rod, resting on twig, pointed into the shadowy roots of a lange tree in clear deep water where, T felt sure, was the home of at least one big fish. Iwas well content and alone, except for my Little Pekinese dod, Chiti, who is har to shake off, although decidedly @ nuisance on any devious fishing trip, talien stillncer ie of the first importance, the gear generally. My basket was then tipped up and the contents investigated: A box of hooks, a spare float, some dough, and bottle of pickles which the doy had evidently forgotten to take out with the other stores which we had brought up in it from Shanghai. A strange assortment! Whilst this was going on I found it possible to roll 8 few more pellets of paste and was arranging them upon the grass behind me in the form of letters, hoping to convey information to my friends, who I know would be looking for me about' breakfast-time. My hands being tightly bound it was no easy task, and had just Gnished the first d in "kidnapped" when I was yanked to my fect and frog-marched over to some donkeys which othe of the'gang had led up. Like a sack I was bundied on to the buck of one, my captors mounted, and we set off in single file up a narrow track towards the hills, the chief leading. I glanced back over my shoulder at the peaceful glade where I had been fishing and there I saw that little brat, Chiki, licking vup the last of my message! ipl f= 7
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.