thing could not have been better done. I said, "There!"
MacArthur was breathing heavily through his nose, and his eyes were shining with delight and excitement and triumph. He had seen the luring and slaughter of a chalk-stream trout—a trout of 1¾ lb., a trout twice as big as the biggest he had ever looked on. He said that it was magnificent, and launched into praises of my skill. I preserved a modest demeanour, and told him that now he must get one. He despaired of ever attaining to my accuracy and deadliness.
Seeing a fish rise about three hundred yards up stream (he has an eye like a telescope), he besought me to come and catch that one too, as he had hardly had time to observe my methods. He said it was a privilege to watch me. I did not say what I would do until we reached the rising fish, when I told MacArthur that he must have a go at it. I pointed out that he had not taken a rod on this river to watch me catching fish, but to learn to do it himself. I insisted on his trying for this fish.
The place in which it lay was situated twenty yards across the stream, under the overhanging branch of a willow, and on the far side of a thin line of rushes and weeds. The rushes and the branch were so disposed that the only possible
