“Do you think that you could persuade them—those other gentlemen, I mean—to leave out one or two songs one evening? There’s that one about the ‘giddy little girl in the big black hat’ that Mr. Montmorency sings. Grandfather doesn’t like that one, and it’s not very amusing, is it? And Viola does want to come so dreadfully.”
The jokey man made no reply, but stared straight out to sea with a very grave face. Perhaps he was thinking of all those other Violas who listened night after night to the songs the General objected to, and were perhaps, unlike his Viola, not “cared about, kept out of harm, and schemed for, safe in love as with a charm.”
Basil waited politely for some minutes, then, as the jokey man didn’t speak, he continued earnestly:
“You see she can just hear that there is music and singing when the windows are open, and it’s so tantalizing, and you see it would be rude to walk away when we’d heard you, and come back next time you sang, wouldn’t it? It doesn’t matter for boys——”
“I’m not at all sure of that,” said Mr. Smith hastily; “it matters very much for boys, too, I think—especially if they don’t happen to have wise grandfathers with good taste. I’ll see what can be done, and let you know.”
“Oh, thank you so much!” cried Basil; “that is kind of you. Viola will be so pleased; she’s up the village now with Polly, or I’d fetch her to thank you herself.”
Now while Basil was talking he noticed that the jokey man’s coat had got leather on the shoulders, and that the leather looked as worn as the coat, so he rightly deduced that at some time or another his new friend must have been something of a sportsman, and asked:
“D’you fish at all?”
“Not here,” said the jokey man, “but I’ve done some fishing in my time. Have you had good sport?”
Then immediately ensued a long discussion on the relative merits of flies, and Basil gave forth his opinion, an opinion backed up by the experience of numerous natives, that the “Coachman” was the fly for that neighborhood, but that there were occasions, especially early in July, when exceedingly good results might be obtained by using red ants. They told each other fishing stories. Basil confided to the jokey man that he had just got a beautiful new split cane rod from “Hardy Brothers,” promised to show it to him at the earliest possible opportunity, and they speedily became the best of friends. For it is a curious fact that although the actual sport itself is a somewhat taciturn pursuit, there are no more conversational sportsmen in the world than ardent followers of the gentle craft.