THE PURPLE EMPEROR.
Un souvenir heureux est peut-être, sur terre,
Plus vrai que le bonheur.
A. de Musset.
I.
The Purple Emperor watched me in silence. I cast again, spinning out six feet more of waterproof silk, and, as the line hissed through the air far across the pool, I saw my three flies fall on the water like drifting thistledown. The Purple Emperor sneered.
"You see," he said, "I am right. There is not a trout in Brittany that will rise to a tailed fly."
"They do in America," I replied.
"Zut! for America!" observed the Purple Emperor.
"And trout take a tailed fly in England," I insisted sharply.
"Now do I care what things or people do in England?" demanded the Purple Emperor.
"You don't care for anything except yourself and your wriggling caterpillars," I said, more annoyed than I had yet been.
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