Robert W Chambers

The Mystery of Choice Robert W Chambers

The Purple Emperor watched me in silence. I cast again, spinning out six feet more of waterproofsilk, and, as the line hissed through the air far across the pool, I saw my three flies fall on the waterlike drifting thistledown. The Purple Emperor sneered."You see," he said, "I am right. There is not a trout in Brittany that will rise to a tailed fly.""They do in America," I replied."Zut! for America!" observed the Purple Emperor."And trout take a tailed fly in England," I insisted sharply."Now do I care what things or people do in England?" demanded the Purple Emperor."You don't care for anything except yourself and your wriggling caterpillars," I said, more annoyedthan I had yet been. The Purple Emperor sniffed. His broad, hairless, sunburnt features bore that obstinate expressionwhich always irritated me. Perhaps the manner in which he wore his hat intensified the irritation, forthe flapping brim rested on both ears, and the two little velvet ribbons which hung from the silverbuckle in front wiggled and fluttered with every trivial breeze. His cunning eyes and sharp-pointednose were out of all keeping with his fat red face. When he met my eye, he chuckled."I know more about insects than any man in Morbihan-or Finistère either, for that matter," hesaid."The Red Admiral knows as much as you do," I retorted."He doesn't," replied the Purple Emperor angrily."And his collection of butterflies is twice as large as yours," I added, moving down the stream to aspot directly opposite him."It is, is it?" sneered the Purple Emperor. "Well, let me tell you, Monsieur Darrel, in all his collectionhe hasn't a specimen, a single specimen, of that magnificent butterfly, Apatura Iris, commonlyknown as the 'Purple Emperor.'""Everybody in Brittany knows that," I said, casting across the sparkling water; "but just because youhappen to be the only man who ever captured a 'Purple Emperor' in Morbihan, it doesn't followthat you are an authority on sea-trout flies. Why do you say that a Breton sea-trout won't touch atailed fly?""It's so," he replied."Why? There are plenty of May-flies about the stream.""Let 'em fly!" snarled the Purple Emperor, "you won't see a trout touch 'em."My arm was aching, but I grasped my split bamboo more firmly, and, half turning, waded out intothe stream and began to whip the ripples at the head of the pool. A great green dragon-fly camedrifting by on the summer breeze and hung a moment above the pool, glittering like an emerald.