CHAFFING A KEEPER.
While things were in this state, one day Tom and three or four others were bathing at Wratislaw's, and had, as a matter of course, been taking up and resetting night-lines. They had all left the water, and were sitting or standing about at their toilets, in all costumes from a shirt upward, when they were aware of a man in a velveteen shooting-coat approaching from the other side. He was a new keeper, so they didn't recognize or notice him, till he pulled up right opposite and began:—
"I see'd some of you young gentlemen over this side a fishing just now."
"Hullo, who are you? what business is that of yours, old Velveteens?"[27]
"I'm the new under-keeper, and master's told me to keep a sharp look out on all o' you young chaps. And I tells 'ee I mean business, and you'd better keep on your own side, or we shall fall out."
"Well, that's right, Velveteens—speak out and let's know your mind at once."
"Look here, old boy," cried East, holding up a miserable coarse fish or two and a small jack, "would you like to smell 'em, and see which bank they lived under?"
"I'll give you a bit of advice, keeper," shouted Tom, who was sitting in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river; "you'd better go down there to Swift's where the big boys are; they're beggars[28] at setting lines, and'll put you up to a wrinkle or two for catching the five-pounders." Tom was nearest to the keeper, and that officer, who was getting angry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to take note of him for future use. Tom returned his gaze with a steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the middle of a favorite School-house song:—
"As I and my companions
Were setting of a snare,
The gamekeeper was watching us,
For him we did not care:
For we can wrestle and fight, my boys,
And jump out anywhere,
For it's my delight of a likely[29] night
In the season of the year."
The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of laughter, and the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief. The boys thought no more of the matter.