With that his eye fell on a little old man of the fisher trade. He was smoking in great repose a short pipe, muttering to himself, and picking at his clasp-knife, which he had taken apart and hung on the railing to dry. Leonard observed him a long time with secret envy. In winter it’s all very fine to be young, he thought, but in spring a man ought to be as old as possible--or at least to have rheumatism that lets up in fair weather. He got up laboriously and pushed his way to the fisherman. “What have you to say to a day like this?” he grumbled. “Eh, well, just that I think there are bream under the bridge piers today,” the old man said reflectively and puffed out a little blue cloud. Leonard was struck by the answer. He began a long conversation with the fisherman, whose name was Lundstrom. The best fishing was spring and autumn, he learned. It was mostly smelt and bream. Perhaps a perch now and again. And before Christmas everybody got a burbot or two in eel-pots a little further up the Malar. He doesn’t make any too much, thought Leonard. But he doesn’t talk about his fishing in the surly tone that poor men mostly use in growling about their scanty earnings. He is proud of his catches, he fondles his tackle, and his eyes rest confidently and patiently on the water. I gather from that that he is a true fisherman, which a man isn’t very likely to become unless he has left much behind him. This quiet fisher person had a strange and enigmatical charm for Leonard. The old man had pulled together the large iron rings, and already the dip-net was swinging festively at its gallows on his low green-painted craft. There was only the grapnel to be pulled in. Thereupon Leonard reached over the railing and pled touchingly to be taken along for once. Yes, that would be all right enough. The boat was first hauled along the stone quay to the bridge and then out with the stem set straight into the roaring whirlpool. A few quick, well-directed oar-strokes, and they floated calmly in the back eddy from the nearest pier of the bridge with the foaming surge to right and left and the dusky arches of the bridge ringing and singing over their heads. There was a dizziness in the suction between the bridge piers, a sensation of rapid movement and yet of rest. Lundstrom made fast to a ring and sat down at the crank by means of which he lowered and raised his net. “Now the job is to sink the net straight down,” he said; “and to do that one must manage so that it is half taken by the current and half by the back eddy. Perhaps the gentleman will give a pull at the oars. There, bring her in a little and it’ll be fine!” Leonard brought the boat in and the net descended solemnly. The old man sank into meditation for a while, and this was a good time to study him. He was by no means ill to look at.