“I don’t lie,” answered Tom, with righteous indignation, glaring hatred across the pool.
“Ah,” said the other. “In that case I beg your pardon. I retract my remark, Pierson.”
The line was again taut, and now, apparently indifferent to the boy’s presence, he began to play the trout once more, warily, slowly. Tom looked on from his rock, the intensity of his anger past. He was forced to acknowledge that “Old Crusty” had at least apologized honestly and fairly; he wished he hadn’t: somehow, he felt at a disadvantage. And there was the enemy proceeding with his wicked sport for all the world as though Tom did not hold his fate in his hand, as it were! Tom swelled with indignation.
“I suppose you know you’re poaching?” he asked, presently, breaking the long silence. The submaster did not turn his head; he merely drew his brows together as though in protest at the interruption. Tom scowled. What a hardened criminal “Old Crusty” was, to be sure!
The trout had but little fight left in him now, and his journey back across the pool was almost without excitement. Only when he felt the imminence of the shore did he call upon his flagging strength and make one last gallant struggle for liberty. To such purpose did he battle then, however, that the man at the rod was forced to play out a yard or so of line. Tom’s interest was again engaged, and, much against his inclination, he had to acknowledge that “Old Crusty” was a master angler. And with that thought came another and a strange one, and it was just this:
“Why,” he asked himself, “if he can be as wonderfully patient with a trout as all that, why can’t he be a little patient with me?”
Suddenly, with the trout almost under the bank, the angler paused and looked about him, at a loss. Tom instantly divined his quandary; the landing-net was floating on the surface of the pool fully three yards distant. Tom grinned with malicious satisfaction for a moment; but then——
“Will you take the rod a minute?” asked “Old Crusty,” just as though there was no enmity between them. “I’ll have to get that net somehow.”
Tom looked from the net to his soaking shoes and trousers. There was but one thing to do.
“I’ll get it,” he answered. “I’m wet already.”