He let it run for some time, to tire it, and to prolong the pleasure of
playing it.

"Gentlemen," he cried, "it is cutting my finger off!"

A stroke from the landing-net laid the monster at our feet, its strength
all spent. It weighed rather under four pounds. Jupille swore to six.

My learned tutor and I sat down again side by side, but the thread of our
conversation had been broken past mending. I tried to talk of her, but
M. Flamaran insisted on talking of me, of Bourges, of his election as
professor, and of the radically distinct characteristics by which you can
tell the bite of a gudgeon from that of a stickleback.

The latter part of this lecture was, however, purely theoretical, for he
got up two hours before sunset without having hooked a fish.

"A good day, all the same," he said. "It's a good place, and the fish
were biting this morning. We'll come here again some day, Jupille; with
an east wind you ought to catch any quantity of gudgeons." He kept pace
beside me on our way home, but wearied, no doubt, with long sitting, with
the heat, and the glare from the water, fell into a reverie, from which
the incidents of the walk were unable to rouse him.

Jupille trotted before us, carrying his rod in one hand, a luncheon-
basket and a fish-bag in the other. He turned round and gave us a look
at each cross-road, smiled beneath his heavy moustache, and went on
faster than before. I felt sure that something out of the way was about
to happen, and that the silent quill-driver was tasting a quiet joke.