The trout hung, delicate and motionless among the wavering shadows. Three boys with fishing poles came onto the bridge and we leaned on the rail and looked down at the trout. They knew the fish. He was a neighbourhood character.
“They’ve been trying to catch that trout for twenty-five years. There’s a store in Boston offers a twenty-five dollar fishing rod to anybody that can catch him.”
“Why dont you all catch him, then? Wouldnt you like to have a twenty-five dollar fishing rod?”
“Yes,” they said. They leaned on the rail, looking down at the trout. “I sure would,” one said.
“I wouldnt take the rod,” the second said. “I’d take the money instead.”
“Maybe they wouldnt do that,” the first said. “I bet he’d make you take the rod.”
“Then I’d sell it.”
“You couldnt get twenty-five dollars for it.”
“I’d take what I could get, then. I can catch just as many fish with this pole as I could with a twenty-five dollar one.” Then they talked about what they would do with twenty-five dollars. They all talked at once, their voices insistent and contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words.
“I’d buy a horse and wagon,” the second said.