It was calm as ever and nestling against a snag. I pulled up my line till the bait emerged, limp, unnibbled. Savagely I swished it back—it caught in the willows. I pulled. It would not budge. In a sudden rage I whipped out my pocket-knife, severed the cord as high above me as I could reach, and wrapping the remnant about my rod, turned townward.
A dozen yards from the faithless stream, I remembered my cheese and crackers, and went back for them, and started off again, purposeless. Never before had vagabondage on a golden morning seemed irksome to me. It was not that I wished to see Cousin Dove, but merely that I had no desire to do anything else—a different matter. Only one way was really barred to me, since in point of pride I could not go homeward till the sun sank, yet all other ways seemed shorn somehow of their old delights, I knew so well every stick and stone of them.
While I was dallying thus, irresolute, I thought of "The Pide Bull" and my old friend Butters. It was inspiration. In twenty minutes (mindful of my father's eyes meanwhile) I had reached the shop.
"Hello," he growled, as I appeared. "You here again?"
"Yep."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing."
"Humpf! Help yourself, then."
"Mr. Butters, what kind of type is this?"
"What type?"