coat collar, the smoke rising and the rain dripping from the inverted
bowl of his pipe. He did not seem to be worrying about his rheumatism.

"What luck?" he asked.

"None at all," I answered morosely. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"That's all right," remarked R. "What do you think I 've been doing? I
've been fishing out of the saw-mill window just to kill time. There
was a patch of floating sawdust there,--kind of unlikely place for
trout, anyway,--but I thought I'd put on a worm and let him crawl
around a little." He opened his creel as he spoke. "But I did n't look
for a pair of 'em," he added. And there, on top of his smaller fish,
were as pretty a pair of three-quarter-pound brook trout as were ever
basketed.

"I 'm afraid you got pretty wet," said R. kindly.

"I don't mind that," I replied. And I didn't. What I minded was the
thought of an hour's vain wading in that roaring stream, whipping
it with fly after fly, while R., the foreordained fisherman, was
sitting comfortably in a sawmill, and derricking that pair of
three-quarter-pounders in through the window! I had ventured more
warily than he, and used, if not the same skill, at least the best
skill at my command. My conscience was clear, but so was his; and he
had had the drier skin and the greater magnanimity and the biggest
fish besides. There is much to be said, in a world like ours, for
taking the world as you find it and for fishing with a worm.

One's memories of such fishing, however agreeable they may be, are not