“No.” The stunned one stared.
“Ah! then you can’t really quite understand. I’m so sorry to disappoint Mr. Engelhardt if he wants me, but you see it’s this way.” He proceeded to explain elaborately, as if in court, the situation to that dumfounded youth. Walter showed him carefully how the fish wouldn’t bite of a morning, and so the first time he could take this one would be the next afternoon. He pointed out that he’d been after this fish off and on all summer, and how big he was, and how one could see that it would be out of the question to leave before he killed him. This and more—details about flies and low water and such things.
When he got through, the head clerk of Bush, Engelhardt & Clarkson didn’t know what he possibly could be talking about. Then a bright idea struck him. Walter was a practical joker—and with that we got the privilege of hearing Mr. Spafford laugh. It wasn’t dead merry laughter; it sounded like a rapid-fire Christmas horn gone rusty. “I see,” he arrested the flow of it to explain. “You are jesting.” And with that I butted in.
“Not on your life, he isn’t,” I stated. “But it’s too blamed bad. Walter, don’t go and do such a perfectly rotten—” and at that point Walter’s eyes flashed fire, and I stopped hurriedly.
But I didn’t give in for all that. I can get him to do things sometimes when most people can’t, and I was bound to try this time. So that night, after we’d tucked up the Spafford blossom in his downy guest-tent—and he was horrid nervous about beasts and spiders—I went into Walter’s camp and reasoned with the Judge. I pointed out things which are obvious to the intelligence of a frog, and after a while I got him to shed his sirupy smile and talk sense.
“I’m not keen about being at the convention, Bob,” he explained. “If the nomination comes of itself I’ll be delighted, but I’m not the build to roll logs and keep my dignity. And I don’t care to be led down on a leash by that young fool. I don’t know what Engelhardt means by sending me such an infernal puppy.”
“Ought not to talk that way before a boy like me, Walter,” I remonstrated. And then reminded him that Mr. Spafford meant awfully well, and that it was his proud boast that he’d been sent because of his reputation for persistence.
“Persistence—heavenly powers!” Walter groaned. “I should say he was persistent. Like a terrier this whole evening. Made camp a hell. I’m so relieved to get him to bed that I could yell for joy.”
Back I went to the point. I saw he was only reluctant to go out, not dead set against it, and I thought Mr. Engelhardt could likely judge better than he could. I asked him, and he said yes, likely, and that it was no harm to be there for the convention, only—he didn’t feel like it. And he felt amazingly like taking that trout. Well, I managed a compromise. It was agreed that we should break camp next morning, and go down ahead of the guides early in the afternoon to the Golden Pool, he and I and Mr. Spafford, and there Walter should fish till it was time to go on to the club to catch the train. If he could corral the sockdologer before that psychological moment, well and good. If not—well, he wouldn’t promise, but I had a hunch that if we were all packed up he’d go on. Anyhow it was the best I could do. So I took Mr. Spafford aside next morning and stated the case, with a rosy glow over possibilities; and I warned him politely not to nag at Walter or he’d break for the North Pole, and never be governor or anything else but a frozen corpse.
Next morning we were busy little housewives, bundling our earthly alls into the big canvas mail-bags which are our camp trunks. The guides were flying back and forth, and everybody was bubbling French, and lots doing. And in the middle of it the poor Spafford waif clung to the red rocking-chair, with the straw hat on his head, lost in wonder. He couldn’t comprehend why people who might live in houses with rugs on the floor, and lace curtains and upholstered chairs should choose to do this. I saw him stare at a three-inch hole in my left trouser, where my complexion showed through, and then lift his wondering eyes to my gray flannel shirt, with much mountain wiped upon it, and a red cotton bandanna decorating the neck of it—he couldn’t see through the game. You have to be born to it, or you can’t.