“Have I?” responded Jack. “Just you watch me, sir.”
Shortly, on the sand by the lake-edge, under a wide-branched pine-tree, the table was spread, with trout still sizzling in the frying-pan and flapjacks and maple sugar and thin fried potatoes and other delicacies of camp, which Adelard and his confrère, Louis, brought in relays, laughing joyfully at the enormous hunger of the young m’sieur. Then, while the guides ate their dinner, while the night settled down like some mammoth bird into its nest over the lonely miles of mountains and the quiet stretch of lake, the man and the boy sat by the bubbling birch fire and “smelled wood smoke at twilight,” and talked fishing. Jack was very great at expounding, and it was seldom he had such a chance; he made the most of it. The older man listened as to the Law and Gospel; it was a memorable evening. The Bradlee fishing-tackle was had out and looked over.
“You’ve got some splendid things,” Jack announced in his uncompromising young voice, and regretted to himself the unnecessary extravagance of a poor man. “But the trouble is, there’s a lot that’s—excuse me for saying it—trash. I reckon you just went to a shop and bought what they told you, didn’t you?”
“Exactly.”
“Too bad.” Jack’s wise head shook sorrowfully. “Wish I could have been along. I could have saved you hunks of money. An automatic reel’s a crime, too, you know. Not sportsmanlike. However—you’ll know, yourself, next time.”
“Thanks to you,” said Bradlee humbly.
“Oh, gee, no,” protested Jack. “You’ll just learn, doing it. Let’s see about that cast for to-morrow morning. Now, I’d admire to have a Parmachene Belle—that’s good in these waters.”
The fine, big, new fly-book was opened, and the man flapped a thick leaf or two and nervously drew out a brown fly. Jack had been teaching him the names.
“Oh no!” the boy threw at him. “That’s a Reuben Wood. Hard to remember till you get used to them, isn’t it, though? Here is your Parmachene—see, with the white and red feathers? Put her on for a hand-fly, wouldn’t you, sir?”
Bradlee obeyed with pathetic promptness, fumbling a bit, but getting fly and snell together ultimately.