The doctor decapitated a trout deftly and replied with enthusiasm that he did. Chub smiled as he watched him and remembered when even to have stood in such close proximity with the doctor would have filled him with vast uneasiness. The doctor had been a good deal in the sun to-day, and the end of his nose was scarlet, while other little patches of the same shade were spread above his eyes and on his cheeks.
“You’ll be needing some cold cream to-night, sir,” Chub said. “You’re burned.”
The doctor felt of his nose gingerly. “It—it’s quite tender to the touch,” he said wonderingly. “I had no idea the sun was so hot. There, that’s the last one. All ready, Dick. Will you bring the pan over here, or shall I—”
“I’ll get it, sir,” said Chub.
Twenty minutes later they were seated around the table—just a yard-square piece of white oil-cloth spread over the grass between the river bank and the tent. It wasn’t the most even table in the world, and Dick unfortunately set the coffee-pot down on a place where it managed to topple over when no one was watching it. That necessitated a new brew. But they were all hungry and happy, as one generally is out of doors under the trees and the sky, and the fiasco was only a matter for laughter.
“See that hump, Dick?” asked Chub, gravely.
There was much to talk about. Dr. Emery and Roy and Dick had their fishing adventures to narrate, and Harry and Chub must tell about Mrs. Peel and the store, and Bennie, and Mrs. Benson and her awe-inspiring husband. Dick was especially eloquent on the subject of the Gypsies whose camp they had passed in returning from the fishing-site.
“There were dozens of them, Chub, and they had the dandiest wagons you ever saw. Painted up like circus wagons, they were. And there were about ten horses there. We saw the queen, too, Harry. She was sitting in the door of her tent, the biggest one of all, it was, and braiding sweet-grass; making baskets, I guess; there were a lot of them hanging around camp.”
“I thought the queens never did any work,” Chub objected.
“I don’t know. I never saw but one band of Gypsies before; we don’t have ’em out West much.”