"May I come too?"
"I've a spare rod if you care about having a go."
"I should love to. I've often thought I'd go in for it. It would be something to do in the evenings."
She walked with him a hundred yards further, where he had left two rods on the bank with the lines in the water; these had been carried by the current as far as the lengths of gut would permit.
"Haul up that one. I'll try this," said Perigal.
Mavis did as she was told, to find there was something sufficiently heavy at the end of her line to bend the top joint of her rod.
"I've got a fish!" she cried.
"Pull up carefully."
She pulled the line from the water, to find that she had hooked an old boot.
Perigal laughed at her discomfiture.