42 FLY-FISHING IN MAINE LAKES, 



as he put the finishing touch to the restored tip, 

 and I lay on the leather lounge, smoking my pipe, 

 and watching his operations. 



" In regard to his being a fisherman, a true 

 sportsman, you mean, I suppose? " 



" Exactly." 



" I think he's a humbug : he professes to know 

 too much in regard to too many things, to excel in 

 any one. I don't believe he could have mended 

 that tip as you have ; and yet, if he had described 

 the ' how to do it ' with his pen, which admitted he 

 handles with vigor, you would have thought him 

 a perfect adept in the art of rod- making. When a 

 professed fisherman tells us to go to Read's for the 

 best rods, and recommends a rod with the reel eight 

 inches from, instead of at, the butt ; tells you that 

 he who ' directs a ball, or hooks a fish, out of mere 

 sport, is deserving of fine and imprisonment/ and 

 then shoots deer out of season, fires thirty or forty 

 shots at a poor loon for the mere * sport ' of the thing, 

 and leaves dozens of trout on a bank to rot, I 

 don't propose to take much stock in him. For- 

 tunately, however, he doesn't care for my opinion, 

 and, I reckon, precious little for any one's else. 

 What's your sentiments?" "Ditto." "Ditto," 

 from the other one, who looks up from her book, 

 evidently quite surprised at the forcible and decided 



