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“What sort of fish did you take?”

“Codfish, of course.”

“Do you angle for them from the banks?”

“I said on the banks—that is, in shoal water.”

“Oh,” said Lester. “I don’t know anything about that kind of fishing. Did you ever play a fifteen pound brook-trout on an eight-ounce fly-rod?”

“No; nor nobody else.”

“I have done it many a time,” said Lester. “I tell you it takes a man who understands his business to land a fish like that with light tackle. A greenhorn would have broken his pole or snapped his line the very first jerk he made.”

“You may tell that to the marines, but you needn’t expect me to believe it,” said Huggins, quietly. “In the first place, a fly-fisher doesn’t fasten his hook by giving a jerk. He does it by a simple turn of the wrist. In the second place, the Salmo fontinalis doesn’t grow to the weight of fifteen pounds.”

Lester was fairly staggered. He had set out with the intention of giving his room-mate a graphic account of some of his imaginary exploits and adventures (those of our readers who are well acquainted with him will remember that he kept a large supply of them on hand), but he saw that it was time to stop. There was no use in trying to deceive a boy who could fire Latin at him in that way.