I imagined myself
going out after lunch, catching trout for dinner; inviting swagger
friends down to 'my little place in Berkshire' for a few days' trout-
fishing. There is a man I once knew who is now a baronet. He used
to be keen on fishing. I thought maybe I'd get him. It would have
looked well in the Literary Gossip column: 'Among the other
distinguished guests'--you know the sort of thing. I had the
paragraph already in my mind. The wonder is I didn't buy a rod."
"Wasn't there any trout stream?" questioned Robin.
"There was a stream," I answered; "if anything, too much stream. The
stream was the first thing your mother noticed. She noticed it a
quarter of an hour before we came to it--before we knew it was the
stream. We drove back to the town, and she bought a smelling-bottle,
the larger size.
"It gave your mother a headache, that stream, and made me mad. The
agent's office was opposite the station. I allowed myself half an
hour on my way back to tell him what I thought of him, and then I
missed the train. I could have got it in if he had let me talk all
the time, but he would interrupt. He said it was the people at the
paper-mill--that he had spoken to them about it more than once; he
seemed to think sympathy was all I wanted. He assured me, on his
word as a house-agent, that it had once been a trout stream. The
fact was historical. Isaac Walton had fished there--that was prior
to the paper-mill.
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