"Why, who told you I caught that trout!" was the surprised query.
We said that nobody had told us so, but somehow or other we felt
instinctively that it was he who had done it.
"Well, it's a most remarkable thing - most remarkable," answered the
stolid stranger, laughing; "because, as a matter of fact, you are quite
right. I did catch it. But fancy your guessing it like that. Dear me,
it's really a most remarkable thing."
And then he went on, and told us how it had taken him half an hour to
land it, and how it had broken his rod. He said he had weighed it
carefully when he reached home, and it had turned the scale at thirty-
four pounds.
He went in his turn, and when he was gone, the landlord came in to us.
We told him the various histories we had heard about his trout, and he
was immensely amused, and we all laughed very heartily.
"Fancy Jim Bates and Joe Muggles and Mr. Jones and old Billy Maunders all
telling you that they had caught it. Ha! ha! ha! Well, that is good,"
said the honest old fellow, laughing heartily. "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.
