Ellis could only laugh, cradling his knees in his clasped and sun-tanned hands.
"I am fond of Nature; I admire the geraniums in my backyard," continued Jones, excitedly. "I like a simple life, too; but I don't wish to pursue a live thing and eat it for my dinner. The idea is perfectly obnoxious to me. I like flowers on a table or in the Park, but I don't want to know their names, or the names of the creatures that buzz and crawl over them, or the names of the birds that feed on the buzzy things! I don't; I know I don't, and I won't! Nature has strung me; I shall knock Nature hereafter. This is all for mine. I'll lock up and leave the key of the fields to the next Come-on lured into the good green goods by that most accomplished steerer, Mrs. Nature. I've got my gilt brick, Ellis—I'm going home to buy a card to hang over my desk; and on it will be the wisest words ever written:
"'Who's Loony Now?'"
"But, my dear fellow——"
"No, you don't. You're an accomplice of this Nature dame; I can tell by the way you cook and catch trout and keep your matches in bottles. One large and brilliant brick is enough for one New York man. The asphalt for mine—and a Turkish bath."
After a grinning silence, Ellis arose, stretched, tapped his pipe against a tree trunk, and sauntered over to where his rod lay. "Come on; I'll guarantee you a trout in the first reach," he said, affably, slipping ferrule into socket, disentangling the cast and setting the line free.
So they strolled off toward the long amber reach which lay a few yards below the camp, Jones explaining that he didn't wish to take life from anything except a mosquito.
"We've got to eat; we'd better stock up while we can, because it's going to rain," observed Ellis.
"Going to rain? How do you know?"
"I smell it. Besides, look there—yonder above the mountains. Do you see the sky behind the Golden Dome?"