" she answered a little doubtfully--then with more assurance,
"but remember what Wilbur Short says in that lovely chapter on
'Communion with the Catfish': I want them brought to the table in the
simplest and most painless way."

"And that is angling with the fly," said he, still more decidedly. "The
fly is not swallowed like a bait. It sticks in the skin of the lip
where there is least feeling. There is no torture in the play of a
salmon. It's just a fair fight with an unknown opponent. Compare it
with the other ways of bringing a fish to the table. If he's caught in
a net he hangs there for hours, slowly strangled. If he's speared, half
the time the spear slips and he struggles off badly wounded; and if the
spear goes through him, he is flung out on the bank to bleed to death.
Even if he escapes, he is sure to come to a pitiful end some
day--perish by starvation when he gets too old to catch his food--or be
torn to pieces by a seal, an otter, or a fish-hawk. Fly-fishing really
offers him----"

"Never mind that," said Ethel, "what does it offer you?"

"A gentleman's sport, I suppose," he answered rather slowly. "That is,
a fair and exciting effort to get something that is made for human use,
in a way that involves some hardship, a little risk, a good deal of
skill and patience and perseverance, and plenty of out-of-door life. I
guess it must be an inheritance of the old days when people lived by
the chase; but, whatever it is, almost every real man feels a certain
kind of gratification in being able to get game or fish by the exertion
of his own pluck or skill. Some day perhaps this will all be changed,
and we shall be contented to take our exercise in the form of massage
or croquet, and our food in compressed tablets. But not yet!"

Ethel shook her head and smiled rather sadly. "Bolton," she said, "you
discourage me. You argue in this way because you like fishing."

"I do," he answered, promptly. "And so far as I can see, that is the
principal reason why your friends, Aurora W. Chime and the Reverend
Wilbur Short, and the rest of them, condemn it. They object to the
evident pleasure of the fisherman more than to the imaginary suffering
of the fish."

"Bolton!" she exclaimed earnestly, "that is not a fair thing to say.
They are truly good and noble teachers. They live on a lofty plane and
labour for the spreading of the Higher Light. You will know them when
we are married. They will be far better company for you t