Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/322

 "Well, I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Kimball. I always thought you were the most accommodating man on the shore. We shall start about eight o'clock. And, I say, Captain," as the fisherman beat a retreat into his own cottage, "don't forget to send along the mosquitonetting. They're pretty thick between this and Great Isle."

But if Uncle Bobby enjoyed an occasional junketing, he liked better still, for the most part, to "gang his ain gait." And he never felt better satisfied with the way his time had been passed, than when he had spent a morning up the creek with his gun for company. To-day he knew that Mrs. Jenkins had been preparing one of her clam-chowders, which, to Uncle Bobby's palate, amply represented soup and fish, solids and sweets. There was a time when Uncle Bobby aspired to champagne and French cookery to his dinner,—before he really knew his own tastes and needs. That was long ago, when he thought he must have Italian opera, though he should never hear again the deep baritone of the surf or the twitter of the sea-swallow; when he fancied he must own richly framed oil paintings, over which no changing lights nor brooding shadows ever swept. He had not heard so much as a concert now for several years, and all his pictures, save one, had been sold. That one was a chromo which he had picked up at auction for a dollar and a half, frame and all. The chromo had done