When the two of us got back from our hike to the lake, we found that there had been a big fire in one of the homes down the street from where we live. No one had been hurt in the blaze, but the flames had left just a shell of what had been one of the best old homes in that whole part of town.

Doc and I went down for a look and were told that no one was in the house when the fire began, which is why it had got such a start by the time the fire trucks got there. While we stood there, some man came out of the wet ruins with a strange look on his face and a black oil can in his hand.

So, fish day and night is what we thought we would do. The sun was up just a little, so that it must not have been more than eight or nine in the morning when the six sets of lines first hit the water. We laughed when Jim snagged the first shoe and when Bob lost the first hook to a hidden log that, as we told him, must have been waiting for him for at least two of three years. We had no luck at all that morning, though; and when we got a whiff of the bacon that Fred had sizzling over a fire, we knocked off for a quick dip in the lake and then a cheerful meal in the shade of the oaks.

We sat by the fire and ate our meal with little of the spark and zest that had marked our lunch. We were still at it when the old fellow who had told us we could fish in the lake came up once more. He asked us whether we had had any luck. We said we had had quite a lot of it, all bad. Then he laughed and said he guessed that, by now, we knew why no one would mind if we fished there: There weren’t any fish.

You might think that we must have exploded with anger, right then and there; but if you think that, you don’t know fishing. We were so glad to find out that the results were not our fault that we just roared with laughter and relief.