this question of their two rods,
as to which rod can best pull in the fish, for half an hour. Others may
have heard the same question debated. I know no way by which it could be
settled.

Our arrangement to go fishing was made at the little golf club of our
summer town on the veranda where we sit in the evening. Oh, it's just
a little place, nothing pretentious: the links are not much good for
_golf_; in fact we don't play much _golf_ there, so far as golf goes,
and of course, we don't serve meals at the club, it's not like that--and
no, we've nothing to drink there because of prohibition. But we go and
_sit_ there. It is a good place to _sit_, and, after all, what else can
you do in the present state of the law?

So it was there that we arranged the party.

The thing somehow seemed to fall into the mood of each of us. Jones said
he had been hoping that some of the boys would get up a fishing party.
It was apparently the one kind of pleasure that he really cared for. For
myself I was delighted to get in with a crowd of regular fishermen
like these four, especially as I hadn't been out fishing for nearly ten
years, though fishing is a thing I am passionately fond of. I know no
pleasure in life like the sensation of getting a four-pound bass on the
hook and hauling him up to the top of the water, to weigh him. But, as
I say, I hadn't been out for ten years. Oh, yes, I live right beside
the water every summer, and yes, certainly--I am saying so--I am
passionately fond of fishing, but still somehow I hadn't been _out_.
Every fisherman knows just how that happens. The years have a way of
slipping by. Yet I must say I was surprised to find that so keen a sport
as Jones hadn't been out--so it presently appeared--for eight years. I
had imagined he practically lived on the water. And Colonel Morse and
Kernin, I was amazed to find, hadn't been out for twelve years, not
since the day--so it came out in conversation--when they went out
together in Lake Rosseau and Kernin landed a perfect monster, a regular
corker, five pounds and a half, they said; or no, I don't think he
_landed_ him. No, I remember, he didn't _land_ him. He caught him--and
he _could_ have landed him, he should have landed him--but he _didn't_
land him. That was it. Yes, I remember Kernin and Morse had a slight
discussion about it--oh, perfectly amicable--as to whether Morse had
fumbled with the net or whether Kernin--the whole argument was perfectly
friendly--