"Oh, we use minnows," said Lapham, "though I have had success with a bob of deer-tail hairs and red feathers. The trout won't rise to a regular fly."
"Up in the mountains I find the 'Doctor' and the brown hackle very killing," said Reynolds. "I have had rare sport in the smaller streams. The bass there are quite as game as brook trout."
"The mountain fish are like the mountain crackers: game but not over wise," Lapham quickly responded, with an intonation meant as a guaranty of the originality of his humor.
"Neither would be easily handled by a novice, I grant you," said Reynolds with a peculiar smile.
Lapham laughed merrily. The retort pleased him better than his own venture.
"I was up in the mountains last winter deer hunting," he said, "and there's one thing I can testify to in behalf of those crackers: they are very hospitable and obliging; they seem to think they can't do too much for one. But the women! It kept me in a state of chronic melancholy to see the poor things."
"Their life is a lonely, dreary, hopeless one," replied Reynolds, "but they are good, and as true as steel."
"Yes, no doubt they are good. I know they are kind, and all that. They asked me to smoke with them and called me sonny!"
"Did you go when they called you?" the General asked, with the ready familiarity of old acquaintance.
"Yes," said Lapham, "I recognize the fitness of the appellation."