Bill the Minder

by W. Heath Robinson

'On asking him where his father was at the present moment, he pointed with his sunburnt hand to the horizon, and looking in the direction indicated, I perceived a little fishing-smack, miles away. Without the loss of a single second, I hired a boat, and, with a boatman to assist, rowed in pursuit, and after a chase of three or four hours drew up, in an exhausted condition, alongside the smack. I now in piteous tones begged the clove kernels of the weather-beaten mariner, but he only laughed loudly and bitterly in reply, and, on my inquiring the reason of his cruel mirth, told me in faltering accents that he had only just hauled in his lines to discover that the fish had gone off with the bait and hook as well. Thus doomed to disappointment, I spent the rest of the day in a state of mind bordering on madness.

'It was a little time after this that, one evening, I was sitting over the kitchen fire. The cook had just served up an excellent dish of fish, and my mind was still turning to Sicily in spite of my endeavours to forget that there was such a place, and wondering if ever I should see Basil Herbert again. Suddenly there was a most terrible disturbance overhead in the dining-room, a noise as of plates being thrown from one end of the room to the other, and presently wild shrieks and groans of pain. I ran lightly upstairs, always ready to be of use in emergencies of any kind, and opened the dining-room door just in time to see the Marquis raving most pitifully. It transpired that the very identical fish that had swallowed the hook

and the clove kernels had been caught and served up to the Marquis's table, and he, poor man, had just swallowed the hook. Taking in the situation at a glance, I soon saw the probability that the three clove kernels, or one or two of them, were in the body of the fish, and walking boldly into the room I grasped the fish by the tail, and took to my heels.

'For miles I ran, out of the town and into the country without stopping, until, quite exhausted and out of breath, I sat down beneath a rock to rest. I now examined the fish which I still held in my hand, and found only two of the kernels in its body, the Marquis having probably swallowed the third.

'However, although not the complete number required by the prescription, they were better than no clove kernels at all, so after resting awhile I resolved to return once more to Sicily.

'After some vicissitudes I arrived at last at the

home of the Leanmuffins to find them all in despair. Basil Herbert's condition had not improved, and the physician had ceased his visits and gone in search of me. I soon mixed the stuff, which brought some little relief to the unhappy young patient—but not enough, as the lotion was not sufficiently strong without the third clove kernel.