London to fish, and not to sit about and watch him doing it. But my chance of taking a firm stand had gone by, and I could only swear to make the most of my lonely hour. Of it three-quarters passed without incident, and then I got to work on a fair fish that rose irregularly, at what I do not know. I put, perhaps, five flies over him, and was just tying on an alder when I observed the massive figure of William moving remorselessly towards me across the water-meadows. In three minutes he was angling for that trout. Now I had found it and fished for it, and by all the rules of the game it was mine to catch or put down. But I was too cowed to protest. I am not man enough for Williams and Blennerhassetts and people like them. William tried fly after fly, fishing with such delicacy and precision that I almost forgave him. At last he tied on what he called a drake's hare's ear. I did not know the fly, but it looked a likely one, and I up and asserted myself, clutched the rod which he had laid very incautiously on the grass, and at the second throw had the exquisite pleasure of landing the fish before William's eyes.
I was now at peace with all the world, and yielded up the rod without a murmur. At four o'clock William had landed two fish and risen three others, and was engaged at an angle of
