"My Ichthyophylax? A noble idea that has puzzled all the parish. A sort of a grill that only works one way. It keeps all my fish from going down to my neighbours, and yet allows theirs to come up to me; and when they come up, they can never get back. At the other end of my property, I have the same contrivance inverted, so that all the fish come down to me, but none of them can go up again. I saw the thing offered in a sporting paper, and paid a lot of money for it in London. Reverend, isn't it a grand invention? It intercepts them all, like a sluicegate."
"Extremely ingenious, no doubt," replied the parson. "But is not it what a fair-minded person would consider rather selfish?"
"Not at all. They would like to have my fish, if they could; and so I anticipate them, and get theirs. Quite the rule of the Scriptures, Reverend."
"I think that I have read a text," said Master Pike, stroking his long chin, and not quite sure that he quoted aright; "the snare which he laid for others, in the same are his own feet taken!"
"A very fine text," replied Dr. Gronow, with one of his most sarcastic smiles; "and the special favourite of the Lord must have realized it too often. But what has that to do with my Ichthyophylax?"
"Nothing, sir. Only that you have set it so that it works in the wrong direction. All the fish go out, but they can't come back. And if it is so at the upper end, no wonder that you catch nothing."
"Can I ever call any man a fool again?" cried the doctor, when thoroughly convinced.
"Perhaps that disability will be no loss;" Mr. Penniloe answered quietly.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] This proved too true, as may be shown hereafter.