The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-11-10

has done more harm
 Man, am I cad after all?'' Gran
 ford looked hurt.
 NO, boy; you're as clean and fine as they make 'em, but 1 want to get it out of your mind that work such as you do is beneath you. Nothing of the kind You wouldn't mind being a military attache in Japan or in Ger
 many. would you? Mo-"
 The other made 10 reply.
 What is the diplomatic service, any
 way. but spying in fashionable clothes,
 multi and military You're working
 along another arm, that's all, free to
 come, free to go, and not more than
 bakers dozen know what you are do- ing. On the other hand, quit it if it
 hurts you.''
 "I can't. You know very well that I'm good for nothing else. I want an
 income of about $7sOOO year. It's in my blood to like cigars such as this one is-luxuries. Do you suppose I'd
 have gone into it at all if it hadn't
 been for that? Oh, Lord! I'm grate- full enough to you for landing me the job, but it has made me mighty dis contented with myself. To wander from April till October over there, an ordinary bloodhound in the latest fash ion, keeping tab on every jeweler who is generally as big a sneak as I am and sharing half the gains with him. It's a bad business. I'm getting so that I can't look a man straight in the eyes any more.
 >'How about the other side of the meda1?''
 ''What?"
 ''The real. thieves ?'
 + +I,e ky-, I7 H. even, give and take That's the phase which makes it possible for me to keep up front when shave myself They know exactly where they stand, and a few of them4 know that I know. For the deuce of it is some of them have found me out and have threat ened me-
 Cranford shuddered.
 That's the one reason why I'm home now. I've got to lie low for awhile. A bad crowd, because every one of them has brains. On my word, I know but three of them, and there are twen- ty working the racket. 1 wear a van dyke oyer there: grow it before I start and cut it off on the way home. Friends chan me, thinking I'm trying to foreignize myself. But the other people mean no real harm. Why should a rich country like this demand so much intolerable. duty? Aren't we heavily taxed as 1t is? I tell you that the general run of smuggling, is nothing more than q sense of reprisaI. They do not look upon it as thieving at alI They are not bringing things into the country to sell again
 Treason, treason!'' murmured softly.
 'Bosh.''
 We'll let it. go as you say. But let me tell you what the real trouble is, Gran. You don't know, but do.''
 Solemnly went through the mimic ry of casting q line or paying ont of striking, of playing and all that rig marble so dear to the f1sherman's heart Cranford grinned
 "Homing dock.'' l. went on, e.'and Fox. Grenadier and the creek. Sand bay, Long Island and Horseshoe4 Eh! And the call of the duck and the geese and the foolish loon and the dip of the hell diver, and the croak of the mud hens in the rushes and the bald eagle in the dead pine top. And don't for get Pidgin island. with the bar that goes northerly and the ledge where the old sockdolagers lie in wait for chub and sinner and crab. Thirty feet of !! line straight down and the skill of a | sleight-o hand man to beat 'em as they | break for the surface. What?''
 sI know more about that country in ! one minute than you'd learn in twenty : years''
 Right o.''-I admitted. esAnd why the | dickens don't you skip town tc2ight ! and stay up there till the middle of i October? Get your tackle and hike. | boy"
 5 T haven't been up there since a year ago last June. s'
 Wire old Uncle Billy. and tomorrow at this ti1ae. you. II be eating boned bass !, and green corn and washing it down with the finest coffee ever brewed. Lord, how I wish didn't have to write yarns for a living. I'd go with you quickly eHough. But I've had my vacation 7
 .'Where'd you go?. eagerly at last.
 I smiled. Did you have Uncle Bill ly row you? How'd they run? Au- gust? I'll bet your
 And got caught out at Charity shoals in q laundering blow, and Bil. ly's sbaliy old engine broke down. and l had to row while he puttered with some1twenty odd spark plugs. Great day! Got the limit. Wet as a dish ragI Gos back to the hotel about T. Broke down six times. sld all the while the sea was running bigger and bigger. SlIe can blow some up there, f. believe ne. Hundreds of miles of clean sweep for the wind.
 "Ial do it.'' sid Cranford "IsIl go tonight. Clean out my soul up there in the open. I want to get away froIn human beings. I wonder why I didn't think of if? Fay the waiter, and we'll go down to Park place and fool away the rest of the afternoon looking over tackle
 I was willing enough. At 4:30 Gran ford had purchased five of the very finest rods. a thousand yards of line nd Ioodors- and l,o,rl-s end ssiznI-c,,.s, l