“But trout!” exclaimed Doctor Joe.  “Why, fresh trout are worth five dollars a pound where I’ve been—­and couldn’t be had for that!”

“Well, now!” said Margaret in astonishment.  “And we has un so plentiful!”

David lighted a lamp and Thomas renewed the fire, which crackled cheerily in the big box stove, while everybody talked excitedly and Margaret set on the table a big dish of smoking fried trout, a heaping plate of bread, and poured the tea.

“Set in!  Set in, Doctor Joe!” Thomas invited.

And when they drew up to the table, with Thomas at one end and Margaret at the other, and Doctor Joe and Jamie at Thomas’s right, and David and Andy at his left, Thomas devoutly gave thanks for the return of their friend and asked a blessing upon the bounty provided.

“Help yourself, now, and don’t be afraid of un,” Thomas admonished, passing the dish of trout to Doctor Joe.

“A real banquet,” Doctor Joe declared, as he helped himself liberally.  “I’ve eaten in some fine places since I’ve been away, but I’ve had no such feast as this!  And there’s no one in the whole world can fry trout like Margaret!”

“You always says that, sir,” and Margaret’s face glowed with pleasure at the compliment.

“’Tis true!” declared Doctor Joe. “’Tis true!”

“I’m wonderin’ now about the trout,” remarked David.

“What are you wondering?” asked Doctor Joe.

“How folks get along with no trout to eat off where you’ve been, sir.”

“There are men who go far out from the city and fish in the streams for trout, just for the sport of catching them,” explained Doctor Joe.  “They will tramp all day along brooks, and feel lucky if they catch a dozen little fellows so small we’d not look at them here.  But it is only the few who do it for sport that ever get any at all, and there are hundreds of people there who never even saw a trout, they catch so very few of them.”

“‘Twould seem like a waste o’ time,” remarked Thomas, “if they catches so few.  I’d never walk all day for a dozen trout unless I was wonderful hard up for grub.  If I were wantin’ fish so bad I’d set a net for whitefish or salmon, or if there were cod grounds about I’d gig for cod, though salmon or cod or whitefish would never be takin’ the place o’ good fresh trout with me.”

“It’s not altogether for the trout the sportsmen tramp the streams all day,” laughed Doctor Joe.  “They prize the trout they get as a great delicacy, to be sure, but it’s the joy of getting out into the open that pays them for the effort.  I’ve done it myself.  They get plenty of sea fish, they buy them at the shops.”

“I never were thinkin’ o’ that,” said Thomas.  “I’m thinkin’, now, that’s where all the salmon we salts down and sells to the Post goes.”

The boys were vastly interested, and asked many questions, which Doctor Joe answered with infinite patience, concerning the various kinds of fish people bought in the shops, and how the fish were caught and shipped to the shops to be sold fresh.