He unslung a pair of field-glasses, focussed them, and began to study the surface of the placid lake, not the far-off surface but the surface within twenty or thirty feet. Then he remarked: "Your flies aren't greatly different from ours. I think we shall find something nearly right. One can never tell. The proclivities of trout and char differ somewhat. I have never taken char." "You don't think you are after char now, do you?" exclaimed Gay. "Because, if so—this lake contains bass, trout, lake-trout, sunfish, shiners, and bullheads, but no char." Pritchard smiled a little sadly and blushed. He hated to put people right. "Your brook-trout," he said, "your salmo fontinalis, isn't a trout at all. He's a char." [Pg 60] [Pg 60] Gay put her back into the rowing with some temper. She felt that the Englishman had insulted the greatest of all American institutions. The repartee which sprang to her lips was somewhat feeble. "If a trout is a char," she said angrily, "then an onion is a fruit." To her astonishment, Mr. Pritchard began to laugh. He dropped everything and gave his whole attention to it. He laughed till the tears came and the delicate guide boat shook from stem to stern. Presently the germ of his laughing spread, and Gay came down with a sharp attack of it herself. She stopped rowing. Two miles off, a loon, that most exclusive laugher of the North Woods, took fright, dove, and remained under for ten minutes. The young people in the guide boat looked at each other through smarting tears. "I am learning fast," said Gay, "that you count your fish before you catch them, that trout are char, and that Englishmen laugh at other people's jokes." She rowed on. "Don't forget to tell me when you've chosen your fish," she remarked. "You shall help me choose," he said; "I insist. I speak for a three-pounder." [Pg 61]
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