"Yes, sometimes."
"Trout run big here?" (What odd eyes the woman has! kind of magnetic.)
"No, seldom over a pound; but they are very game."
"Rare good sport, isn't it, whipping a stream? There is so much besides the mere catching of fish; the river and the trees and the quiet sets a fellow thinking; kind of sermon; makes a chap feel good, don't it?"
She smiles assentingly, and yet what the devil is she amused at, he queries mentally. An inspiration! he acts upon it, and says eagerly,—
"I wonder—I don't half like to ask, but fishing puts people on a common footing, don't it? You knowing the stream, you know, would you tell me what are the best flies to use?"
"I tie my own, but—"
"Do you? How clever of you! Wish I could;" and sitting down on the other end of the tree, he takes out his fly-book. "But I interrupted you, you were going to say—"
"Only,"—stretching out her hand, of a perfect shape but decidedly brown, for the book,—"that you might give the local fly-tyer a trial; he'll tell you. Later on, end of next month, or perhaps later, you might try the oak-fly,—the natural fly, you know. A horn is the best thing to hold them in, they get out of anything else; and put two on at a time."
"By Jove, I must try that dodge!"