erly and I
had an impulse to confess the other things, the impossible little
scale-wing flies, the tin whistle and the Jock Scott with two hooks.
However, it did not seem just the psychological moment, and I refrained.

As for Eddie's flies, viewed together, they were a dazzling lot. There
were books and books of them--American, English, Scotch and what not.
There was one book of English dry-flies, procured during a recent
sojourn abroad, to be tried in American waters. One does not dance and
jiggle a dry-fly to give it the appearance of life--of some unusual
creature with rainbow wings and the ability to wriggle upstream, even
against a swift current. The dry-fly is built to resemble life itself,
color, shape and all, and is cast on a slow-moving stream where a trout
is seen to rise, and allowed to drift with the gently flowing current
exactly over the magic spot. All this Eddie explained to me and let me
hold the book a little time, though I could see he did not intend to let
me use one of the precious things, and would prefer that I did not touch
them.

He was packing now and I wandered idly about this uncatalogued museum of
sporting goods. There was a heap of canvas and blankets in one corner--a
sleeping bag, it proved, with an infinite number of compartments, or
layers; there were hats of many shapes, vests of many fabrics, coats of
many colors. There were things I had seen before only in sporting goods
windows; there were things I had never seen before, anywhere; there were
things of which I could not even guess the use. In the center of
everything were bags--canvas and oil-skin receptacles, vigorously named
"tackle bag," "wardrobe," "war bag" and the like--and into these the
contents of the room were gradually but firmly disappearing, taking
their pre-destined place according to Eddie's method--for, after all, it
was a method--and as I looked at Eddie, unshaven for weeks, grizzled and
glaring, yet glowing with deep kindliness and the joy of anticipation, I
could think of nothing but Santa Claus, packing for his annual journey
that magic bag which holds more and ever more, and is so deep and so
wide in its beneficence that after all the comforts and the sweets of
life are crowded within, there still is room for more a-top. Remembering
my own one small bag which I had planned to take, with side pockets for
tackle, and a place between for certain changes of raiment, I felt my
unimportance more and more, and the gre