"Yes, they are the sort
to give it ME, to put up in MY parlour, if THEY had caught it, they are!
Ha! ha! ha!"
And then he told us the real history of the fish. It seemed that he had
caught it himself, years ago, when he was quite a lad; not by any art or
skill, but by that unaccountable luck that appears to always wait upon a
boy when he plays the wag from school, and goes out fishing on a sunny
afternoon, with a bit of string tied on to the end of a tree.
He said that bringing home that trout had saved him from a whacking, and
that even his school-master had said it was worth the rule-of-three and
practice put together.
He was called out of the room at this point, and George and I again
turned our gaze upon the fish.
It really was a most astonishing trout. The more we looked at it, the
more we marvelled at it.
It excited George so much that he climbed up on the back of a chair to
get a better view of it.
And then the chair slipped, and George clutched wildly at the trout-case
to save himself, and down it came with a crash, George and the chair on
top of it.
"You haven't injured the fish, have you?" I cried in alarm, rushing up.
"I hope not," said George, rising cautiously and looking about.
But he had. That trout lay shattered into a thousand fragments - I say a
thousand, but they may have only been nine hundred.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255