A silence fell upon the room, a silence that seemed to symbolize the 'biffing' of the doctor's son by old French. Willsher took the opportunity to steer the conversation back to fish, and ten o'clock struck in the middle of an argument between him and his friend over the merits of two artificial flies. Guy must be on the Rectory lawn by eleven o'clock, and he began to be anxious, so animated was the discussion, about the departure of these well-meaning intruders. He did not want to plunge straight from their company into the glorious darkness that would hold Pauline; and he eyed the volume of Keats lying face downward on the table, hoping he would be allowed to come back to the knights and ladies praying in their dumb oratories, while he thought with a thrill of the moment when he should be able to read: _And they are gone; ay, ages long ago_ _These lovers fled away into the storm._ "If you can't get a chub any other way, you can sometimes get him with a bit of bacon," Willsher was saying. "And I know a fellow who caught one of those woppers under Marston's Mill with a cherry. Fact, I assure you." "I know a man at Oldbridge, who caught a four pounder with a bumble-bee." "I caught a six pounder at Oxford with a mouse's head myself," Guy declared. The friends looked at him in the admiration and envy with which anglers welcome a pleasant companionable sort of a lie. It was a bad move, for it seemed as if by that lie he had drawn closer the bonds of sympathy between himself and his guests. They visibly warmed to his company, for Brydone at once invited himself to another 'tot' and was obviously settling down to a competitive talk about big fish; while Willsher's first shyness turned to familiarity, so completely indeed that he asked if Guy would mind his moving the furniture in order to try to explain to that fathead Brydone the exact promontory of the Greenrush where he had caught thirty trout in an hour when the mayfly was up two years ago. Half-past-ten struck from the church tower, and Guy became desperate. There was nothing he hated so much as asking people to go, which was one reason why he always discouraged them at the beginning; but it really seemed as if he must bring himself to the point of asking Brydone and Willsher to leave him to his work. He decided to allow them until a quarter-to-eleven. The minutes dragged along, and when the quarter sounded Guy said he was sorry but that he was very much afraid he would have to work now.