“He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s fishing,” continued Harker.  “It’s a sort of fad of his to eat nothing but fish, and he’s very proud of catching his own.  Of course he’s all for simplicity, like so many of these millionaires.  He likes to come in saying he’s worked for his daily bread like a laborer.”

“Does he explain how he blows all the glass and stuffs all the upholstery,” asked Fisher, “and makes all the silver forks, and grows all the grapes and peaches, and designs all the patterns on the carpets?  I’ve always heard he was a busy man.”

“I don’t think he mentioned it,” answered the lawyer.  “What is the meaning of this social satire?”

“Well, I am a trifle tired,” said Fisher, “of the Simple Life and the Strenuous Life as lived by our little set.  We’re all really dependent in nearly everything, and we all make a fuss about being independent in something.  The Prime Minister prides himself on doing without a chauffeur, but he can’t do without a factotum and Jack-of-all-trades; and poor old Bunker has to play the part of a universal genius, which God knows he was never meant for.  The duke prides himself on doing without a valet, but, for all that, he must give a lot of people an infernal lot of trouble to collect such extraordinary old clothes as he wears.  He must have them looked up in the British Museum or excavated out of the tombs.  That white hat alone must require a sort of expedition fitted out to find it, like the North Pole.  And here we have old Hook pretending to produce his own fish when he couldn’t produce his own fish knives or fish forks to eat it with.  He may be simple about simple things like food, but you bet he’s luxurious about luxurious things, especially little things.  I don’t include you; you’ve worked too hard to enjoy playing at work.”

“I sometimes think,” said Harker, “that you conceal a horrid secret of being useful sometimes.  Haven’t you come down here to see Number One before he goes on to Birmingham?”

Horne Fisher answered, in a lower voice:  “Yes; and I hope to be lucky enough to catch him before dinner.  He’s got to see Sir Isaac about something just afterward.”

“Hullo!” exclaimed Harker.  “Sir Isaac’s finished his fishing.  I know he prides himself on getting up at sunrise and going in at sunset.”

The old man on the island had indeed risen to his feet, facing round and showing a bush of gray beard with rather small, sunken features, but fierce eyebrows and keen, choleric eyes.  Carefully carrying his fishing tackle, he was already making his way back to the mainland across a bridge of flat stepping-stones a little way down the shallow stream; then he veered round, coming toward his guests and civilly saluting them.  There were several fish in his basket and he was in a good temper.

“Yes,” he said, acknowledging Fisher’s polite expression of surprise, “I get up before anybody else in the house, I think.  The early bird catches the worm.”