“I understand, my dear,” said the colonel gently. “And I am not going fishing merely to shirk a responsibility. But I have to think some of these puzzles out quietly, and fishing is the quietest pastime I know.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” Viola hastened to add. “I shouldn't have said anything. I wish I could get quiet myself. I'm almost tempted to take your recipe.”
“Why don't you?” urged the colonel. “Come along with me. I can soon teach you the rudiments, though to become a finished angler, so that you would be not ashamed to meet Mr. Walton, takes years. But I think it would rest you to come. Shall I tell Shag to fit you out with one of my rods?”
Viola hesitated a moment. This might give her an opportunity for talking with the colonel in secret and confidence. But she put it aside.
“No, thank you,” she answered. “I'll go another time. I must stop at the office and leave some bills that have come here to the house. Mr. Blossom attends to the payment.”
“Let me leave them for you,” offered the colonel. “I have to go into town for some bait, and I can easily stop at the office for you.”
“If you will be so good,” returned Viola, and she got the bundle of bills—some relating to Mr. Carwell's funeral and others that had been mailed to the house instead of to the office.
The colonel might have sent Shag to purchase the shedder crabs he was going to use for bait that day in fishing in the inlet, and the colored servant might have left the bills. But the colonel was particular about his bait, and would let none select it but himself. Consequently he had Jean Forette drive him in, telling Shag to meet him at a certain dock where they would drop down the inlet and try for “snappers,” young bluefish, elusive, gamy and delicious eating.
“You have not yet found a place?” asked the colonel of the chauffeur, as they rolled along.
“No, monsieur—none to my satisfaction, though I have been offered many. One I could have I refused yesterday.”