“He goes because it is fashionable, I suppose,” said Rube; and I afterward found out that that was just the reason. I saw him in the wilderness a few weeks later, and had an opportunity to exchange a word or two with the Brummagem breech-loader. The latter looked decidedly seedy. He was covered with rust, his locks were out of order, and he had been put to such hard service that every joint in his make-up was loose. The second time I met him he could scarcely talk to me, because there was not much left of him except his stock. His ignorant owner—but we’ll wait until we come to that, won’t we?
The next customers who came into the store were an elderly gentleman and a young lady. I certainly thought my chance for freedom had come, for when the gentleman said that his daughter wanted to look at a fly-rod, something light enough to be managed with one hand, and strong enough to land a perch or rock-bass, the proprietor pushed open the door in front of me and took me out.
“Aha!” exclaimed the bamboo. “Your fate is to be the companion and plaything of a little girl, who will probably set you to catching sunfish and minnows, and throw you down in the mud when she gets through with you. I know that I am destined for the trout streams, and I have an idea that I shall be taken to Canada to have a shy at the lordly salmon. Good-by; but I am sorry for you.”
I did not thank the bamboo for his words of sympathy, because I did not believe they were sincere. I thought I could detect a hypocritical twang in them; but before I could tell him so, I was taken out of my case, and for the first time given an opportunity to see how I looked.
“There is a rod I can recommend. Lancewood throughout, nickel-plated ferrules and reel-seat and artistically wound with cane and silk,” said the proprietor, glibly. “I will warrant him to do good work, and if the lady breaks him she will not be much out of pocket—only six dollars and a half.”
“Oh, I don’t want a cheap thing like that,” exclaimed the young lady, who would not take a second look at me after she heard that I was worth so little money. “I want a nice rod.”
The storekeeper laid me on the show-case, and brought my friend the split bamboo out for exhibition. He was a splendid looking fellow, and I did not wonder that the young lady went into ecstasies over him, and declared at once that he was just the rod she had long been wishing for. Neither could I resist the temptation to say to him, as he was put back into his case:
“What do you think now of your chances of going among the trout streams and of taking a shy at the lordly salmon! Good-by; but I am sorry for you.”
The bamboo was so crest-fallen that he could make no response. He was carried away by his new owner, and I did not see him again until I was almost ready to be laid upon the shelf in my master’s closet, to enjoy a long winter’s rest after a season of the hardest kind of work. The pride and arrogance were all gone out of him, and he did not look much as he did when he left the store. If he had been a man, folks would have called him a tramp.