He smiled too at the way in which his cork bobbed up and down on the water, and he began to feel that it would not matter much whether he caught any fish or not.

It was just enough to sit there and go through all the motions of fishing.
A shout from a point twenty yards below and he looked up, startled, from his dream.
"A bite!" exclaimed Warner, "I thought I had him, but he slipped off the hook! I raised him to the surface and I know he was two feet long!" "Nine inches, probably," said Dick.

"Allow at least fifteen inches for your imagination, George." "I suppose you're right, Dick.

At least, I have to do it down here.
If it were a Vermont river he'd be really two feet long." Dick heard his line and sinker strike the water again, and then silence returned to the little wood, but it did not endure long.

From a point beyond Warner came a shout, and this was undeniably a cry of triumph.
It was accompanied by a swishing through the air and the sound of an object striking the leaves.
"I got him! I got him! I got him!" exclaimed Pennington, dancing about as if he were only twelve years old.
Dick stood up and saw that Pennington, in truth, had caught a fine fish, at least a foot long, which was now squirming over the leaves, its silver scales gleaming.
"It seems to me," said Dick, "that the very young Territory of Nebraska has scored over the veteran State of Vermont." "A victor merely in a preliminary skirmish," said Warner serenely.
"The fish happened to be there.