In fact the more
we thought about the advantage of having a "man" to take
us the better we liked it. As a boy gets old he likes to
have a man around to do the work.
Anyway Frank Rolls, the man we decided to get, not only
has the biggest launch in town but what is more Frank
_knows_ the lake. We called him up at his boat-house over
the phone and said we'd give him five dollars to take us
out first thing in the morning provided that he knew the
shoal. He said he knew it.
I don't know, to be quite candid about it, who mentioned
whisky first. In these days everybody has to be a little
careful. I imagine we had all been _thinking_ whisky for
some time before anybody said it. But there is a sort of
convention that when men go fishing they must have whisky.
Each man makes the pretence that one thing he needs at
six o'clock in the morning is cold raw whisky. It is
spoken of in terms of affection. One man says the first
thing you need if you're going fishing is a good "snort"
of whisky; another says that a good "snifter" is the very
thing; and the others agree that no man can fish properly
without "a horn," or a "bracer" or an "eye-opener." Each
man really decides that he himself won't take any.
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