OF MAcARTHUR 93 



Nothing that I could say would persuade him 

 that chalk-stream fishing is pure skittles compared 

 with that he was accustomed to find in a tiny 

 bush -shrouded brook near Midhurst (a place in 

 which he could catch trout all day long while I 

 should have spent my time cutting down trees). 

 Nor could I get him to understand that, easy 

 though dry-fly fishing might be, I am extremely 

 unhandy at it. He said that 1 only talked like 

 that to encourage him, whereas I was really trying 

 to encourage myself. For T had discovered that I 

 possessed a reputation up to which nobody could 

 possibly live, and as the day approached when 

 I should have to " show him how to do it " at the 

 expense of those fish under whose contempt I had 

 writhed five summers long, I wondered sometimes 

 if I had not better perhaps break my right arm in 

 two places, and so preserve to MacArthur the last 

 ideal that he was ever likely to cherish. 



At length the first day of May dawned, and my 

 right arm was still (as much as it had ever been) 

 at my service. I made, as the newspapers relate 

 of the condemned, a hearty breakfast of sausages 

 and bacon, and smoked a cigarette while Mac- 

 Arthur greased his line for the third time since 

 he had risen. Presently we were by the water's 

 edge, and for half an hour I showed MacArthur 

 how to cast his fly over imaginary fishes, and how 



