"Then," said Bob, "trout aren't shy?"
"Not so shy as they try to make 'em out," said Sandboys. "Of course they don't come walkin' up around the corridors of the hotel; an' you don't often find 'em makin' themselves conspicuous in the ballroom; nor they ain't bold like college boys, runnin' all around chuckin' their college yells at the echo—in comparison with some folks we know they be shy; but, judgin' 'em from the stand-point of plain fish, they're as ordacious as any. They'd swim up to a shark if they met one, and sass him right to his face if they wanted to, without any fear of consequences or any idee of bashfulness. Shy! Poh! It's all nonsense. Why, the only bit of highway robbery that's ever been known outside of the reg'lar business channels here was done by a trout—right down on Mirror Lake, too. Takes nerve to steal a ring right off a young lady's finger, I guess."
"Stole a ring off a young lady's finger!" cried Bob. "A trout?"
"Hyops!" assented Sandboys. "A trout, and right down there in the shadow of the Old Man too. It came near breakin' the young lady's heart. The ring didn't amount to much as a ring, but it had a lot o' sentimentals connected with it because it had been given to her by the young man she was engaged to, and she'd swore she'd never take it off. It was a little gold band with blue 'namel letters in it. The letters spelt MIZPAH. I don't know what Mizpah means, but I think it's Greek for George, because that was the young man's name.
"She'd only been here a week, and he was comin' up to spend Sunday. It was a Saturday afternoon it happened, and he was expected to arrive on the train that evening, and she was happy as could be over it. That afternoon she went out rowin' on the lake with another young man she'd met up here, and while they was out George arrived. He'd come up on an earlier train, just to surprise her, and I tell you what he didn't like it much when her ma said: 'Why, how do you do, George? This is delightful. Emily will be so pleased. We didn't expect you until to-night.' 'Well, I'm here,' said George. 'I thought I'd come some o' the way by boat, and get here three or four hours earlier. Started last night. Where is Emily?' 'She's down on the lake with Mr. Begum,' said the young lady's ma. 'Oh, is she?' said George. 'I'm glad she's havin' such a good time.' But he wasn't. You'd ought to seen his face fall when he heard she was out rowin', and not pinin' away because he wasn't there.
"Meanwhile the young lady and Mr. Begum was rowin' quietly over the lake, talkin' about literatoor and art and things like that. He was doin' the rowin' and she was trailin' her hand in the water—the hand with the Mizpah ring on it—when all of a sudden a trout gave a dart out o' the shadder of the rocks, opened his mouth, caught holt of the ring, pulled it right off, an' retired; an', worst of all, two minutes later George appeared on the bank o' the lake and called out to her that he was there. She was awfully cut up. The surprise at seein' him, an' the grief at losin' his ring she'd said would never be took off her finger, was a fearful combination, 'specially as George noticed, the minute she came ashore, that the ring was gone.
"'Where's the ring?' said he. An' she told him how the trout had behaved, and it seemed to make him awful gloomy. Ye see, he didn't believe it. He thought it was a fish story, and he said so. He had an' idee she'd given the ring to Mr. Begum, and he was pretty mad about it."
"It did sound like a fish story," put in Jack. "Seems to me I'd find it hard to believe myself, if you hadn't told it to me."
Sandboys smiled his appreciation of this compliment to his veracity, and continued: