e agreed with this statement, but when questioned
separately their statements varied somewhat as to the reasons of
failure. It did not matter. Eddie was discouraged in the calf moose
project, I could see that. Presently I began boasting of the big day's
sport I had enjoyed, and then to show off I said, "This is how I did
it."

Eddie was washing his hands in my perch pool and I had no idea of
getting anything--one is not likely to when he wishes to exhibit
himself--but I made a cast with the light tackle with two flies on it
and immediately had my hands full. For once, I did actually show off
when I undertook to do it. I think the only two big perch in that pool
seized those flies, and for the next five or ten minutes they were
making my reel sing and giving me such sport as only two big white perch
on a light tackle can. I brought them to the net at last and Eddie
looked on with hungry, envious eyes.

"You don't mean to say you've been taking those things all day," he
said.

"All day, more or less. I merely gave this little exhibition to wind up
on."

But of course I had to show him the size of the others, then, and he was
appeased to the extent of forgetting most of his troubles in a square
meal. That quiet day with the white perch, ending as it did with a grand
finale, remains one of my fondest memories.

Chapter Twenty-five

_You may pick your place--you may choose your hour--_
_You may put on your choicest flies;_
_But never yet was it safe to bet_
_That a single trout would rise._

Chapter Twenty-five

Back across Tupper Lake and down Sand Brook to the Shelburne. Eddie left
the further wilderness with a sigh, for he felt that his chance of
getting a moose calf for those museum people was getting slim. A
distance--I have forgotten the number of miles--down the Shelburne would
bring us to country known to the guides and not remote enough for moose
at this season. As Eddie is no longer in this country, I may confess,
now, that I was glad.

It was beautiful going, down Sand Brook. There was plenty of water and
the day was perfect. There is nothing lovelier in the world than that
little limpid stream with its pebbly riffles and its sunlit pools.
Sometimes when I think of it now I am afraid that it is no longer there
in that far still Arcady, or that it may vanish through some enchantment
before I can ever reach it again. Indeed as I am writing here to-day I
am wondering if it is