Good-night, gentlemen, good-night."
And out he went, and left us alone.
We could not take our eyes off the fish after that. It really was a
remarkably fine fish. We were still looking at it, when the local
carrier, who had just stopped at the inn, came to the door of the room
with a pot of beer in his hand, and he also looked at the fish.
"Good-sized trout, that," said George, turning round to him.
"Ah! you may well say that, sir," replied the man; and then, after a pull
at his beer, he added, "Maybe you wasn't here, sir, when that fish was
caught?"
"No," we told him. We were strangers in the neighbourhood.
"Ah!" said the carrier, "then, of course, how should you? It was nearly
five years ago that I caught that trout."
"Oh! was it you who caught it, then?" said I.
"Yes, sir," replied the genial old fellow. "I caught him just below the
lock - leastways, what was the lock then - one Friday afternoon; and the
remarkable thing about it is that I caught him with a fly. I'd gone out
pike fishing, bless you, never thinking of a trout, and when I saw that
whopper on the end of my line, blest if it didn't quite take me aback.
Well, you see, he weighed twenty-six pound. Good-night, gentlemen, good-
night."
Five minutes afterwards, a third man came in, and described how he had
caught it early one morning, with bleak; and then he left, and a stolid,
solemn-looking, middle-aged individual came in, and sat down over by the
window.
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