By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 9, 1938.
“Since I don’t swim,” said Jimmie Frise, “I guess we had better order nothing but rowboats for the cottage. No canoes.”
“What?” I protested. “Break our backs sculling rowboats all over the lake? Nothing doing.”
“The older I get,” said Jim, “the less I feel like being dumped out of a canoe.”
“The older I get,” I retorted, “the less I feel like straining my heart heaving 200-pound rowboats around when I can get a sweet little stream-lined canoe that weighs only 65 pounds.”
“Most drownings,” said Jim, “are from canoes.”
“No, sir,” I stated emphatically. “Most drownings are because people leave canoes.”
“How do you mean?” demanded Jim.
“All canoes float,” I informed him. “Even upset canoes. Even canoes absolutely full of water. They float. They float even in a heavy sea. No matter what happens to an upset canoe, it is still one of the greatest life rafts in the world.”
“Then how do all the drownings occur?” demanded Jim.
“Because foolish and excited people try to swim to shore,” I explained, “instead of clinging to the canoe either until help comes or until they patiently kick the canoe to shore.”
“Suppose,” suggested Jimmie, “they get a cramp. Suppose they have just eaten a meal before they’re upset1, or suppose the shock of the sudden dump gives them a cramp?”
“A canoe,” I advised, “can be completely emptied of water by an expert. But even a complete dub can half empty an upset and swamped canoe. It’s very simple to do. And then, if the slightest sign of cramps appears, all you have to do is crawl quickly into the canoe and lie there until the cramps disappear or until the canoe floats ashore.”
“It all sounds very expert woodsmanny to me,” submitted Jim.
“Look,” I explained. “The canoe upsets. You and I are in it. Instead of glaring wildly around to see how far from terra firma we are, the very first thing we do is grab the canoe and get a good, easy hold on it.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jim. “I can see me spouting water like a whale, gasping and yelling.”2
“All right,” I said. “Now, the canoe, being streamlined and light, it very easily rolled over, right side up, see?”
“I’ve got goose flesh all over me already,” said Jim.
“We roll the canoe over, right side up,” I described. “It is, of course, as full of water as a tub. So we both work our way along the sides, holding on firmly, until we are at the one end together. This causes the other end of the canoe to stick high up out of the water.”
“A distress signal,” agreed Jim. “Sticking up and calling for help.”
All So Very Simple
“Yes,” I admitted. “But now the two of us, hanging on to the one end together, bear down with our arms and at the same time kicking out with our legs, shove forward as hard as we can. This causes half the water to flow out towards us.”
“Swamping us,” said Jim.
“No,” I explained. “We relax our weight and shove, and the canoe rights itself, half emptied. Then we work our way around to opposite sides, about the middle of the canoe. And we start alternately rocking the canoe, causing the water to splash out heartily over the sides. Experts do it another way. They get it partly emptied and then crawl cautiously in over the end of the canoe, creep along to the middle, and resting their feet on one side and their hands on the opposite gunwale, give the canoe a sudden complete flip that empties it entirely. At all regattas, you can see expert canoe men upsetting a canoe and then emptying it by this flipping method.”
“I can’t see you and me flipping canoes,” gave Jim as his opinion.
“No,” I confessed. “But the way I have told you, the pressing down of one end and shoving forward and then the subsequent rocking of the canoe, with such flapping out of water by hand as you care to do, will sufficiently empty a canoe to make it safe to get in and paddle it cautiously to the nearest shore.”
“How do you get back in?” asked Jim.
“At opposite ends,” I explained. “First one crawls carefully in over the end while the other fellow, still in the water, balances it as best he can. And then the other fellow worms his way in the same style, the man who is in balancing it for him.”
“Suppose I’m in the canoe alone?” asked Jim.
“One man can do it almost as well,” I stated. “He can get enough water out to let him crawl in and get to shore.”
“Suppose I have lost my paddles? Should I have swum after them?” asked Jim.
“Never swim after your paddles,” I cried. “Try to grab one as you tip. But never, never swim after one. Use your hands to paddle to shore.”
“Yes, but suppose there is an offshore breeze?” said Jim.
“If there is an offshore breeze,” I informed him, “you shouldn’t have been out in a canoe, and in any case a canoe is not to be used on big lakes or wide, open waters. It is an inshore craft, a craft for rivers and small lakes and channels. Even the Indians never went on big water in two-man canoes. They had a great, big travelling or war canoes for venturing on wide water, and they’d hold six to 20 men.”
“I suppose Indians upset often enough,” said Jim.
“Did you ever see an Indian,” I demanded, “sitting the cane seats or thwarts of a canoe?3 Never. He rests his hips against the thwart but his knees are on the bottom of the canoe, and so is his weight. Only amateur white men sit up on the cane seats or thwarts.”
“I still like a rowboat,” mused Jim. “Suppose I forget to bring my canoe cushion? Do I have to kneel with my knee-bones on the hard bottom of the canoe?”
“All you’ve got to do,” I said, “is what the Indian does. Take your jackknife and cut a little bundle of balsam boughs or ferns and make a cushion for your knees. You don’t even have to carry that cushion across a portage. You just cut yourself a new one and a springier one at the far end of each portage.”
“I Hate Sudden Water”
“I still like a rowboat,” declared Jim. “A good wide, fat rowboat, preferably the stern seat, with an old kitchen chair, with its legs pulled out by roots, screwed down for a nice comfortable seat and back rest.”
“And who,” I inquired, “will be rowing?”
“I don’t like to mention any names,” said Jimmie.
“Jim,” I announced, “the greatest fears in this world are the fears of the unknown. Meeting a bear isn’t half as bad as thinking of meeting a bear. I declare that at every regatta in Canada there ought to be a canoe-dumping demonstration, and that every family that owns a canoe ought to hold a canoe-dumping exercise on their own beach, with plenty of help and advice handy, so that every member of the family who uses that canoe will have felt what it is like to be dumped and know what to do. On every canoe that is sold, there ought to be painted, right on the deck, in clear, strong letters, the words, ‘in case of upset, hang to the canoe. Do not try to swim to shore, however near.’ That is the greatest truth of all.”
“I’ll watch you, up at the cottage,” said Jim, “stage a dumping demonstration for me.”
“Better still,” I cried, “some hot night this week, when we feel like a swim anyway, instead of going to a public swimming pool and getting kicked all over by children, let’s go down to Sunnyside and rent a canoe, in our bathing suits, and go quietly out and stage a little dump ourselves.”
“I hate sudden water,” replied Jim. “I like my water inch by inch, I like to submerge a joint at a time, my ankles, my knees, then my hips, then my waist, and so on.”
“Jim,” I advised, “you’re not so old yet that you will never be in a canoe again. And I want you to know how it feels to be dumped. We’ll go down to Sunnyside and do it in shallow water. Just up to our necks.”
“Up to your neck,” said Jim, stung by my reference to his age, “and up to my waist.”
“It will be an interesting experiment,” I said. “As two sportsmen in our prime, we ought not to be afraid of any experiences that are likely to happen to us anyway.”
“We don’t want a lot of people looking on,” said Jim.
“We’ll slip down around supper time,” I suggested, “when there is nobody around, and we’ll pick a quiet spot.”
Jim thought it was just another of the suggestions I make and then forget. But Thursday was so hot and humid and the thought of immersion, however sudden and however cold, was so grateful to the imagination, that I went up and got Jimmie just as he was taking the thumb tacks out of a cartoon.
The Element of Surprise
At the Sunnyside bathing pavilion, we rented bathing suits from the gentleman, explaining what we were going to do and he let us take the bathing suits away with us. We rented a canoe, one of those dizzy little city sissy canoes that are rented to pillow cushion paddlers, and since it was tippier than ordinary camping canoes, it would make our experiment all the easier, both coming and going.
We left our clothes at the boathouse and set forth on the quiet lake, I steering. Far and wide, a drowsy evening hung. In the distance, a motor cruiser with a party on board was
drifting slowly.
“It’s certainly quiet enough,” said Jim, peering overside into the water. “But it’s pretty darn deep.”
“Now, now,” I said. “This isn’t going to hurt you. Just grab the sides when we go over.”
“Not yet, not yet!” cried Jim, agitated.
“There has to be an element of surprise,” I said, “to make it realistic.”
“Yeah,” said Jim, “I’ll be the only one surprised. Don’t you dare do it until I tell you, or I’ll come right back and duck you.”
“We’re both going to be ducked,” I smiled, teetering the dizzy canoe slightly.
“Wait, wait,” roared Jim. “I’m not in the mood. I feel a little cramp already. In my foot.”
“Heh, heh, heh,” I laughed, sinisterly.
“Look,” pleaded Jim, turning cautiously to fix me with his eye, “I don’t feel like dumping tonight. Let’s put it off. I’ve felt kind of dull and dopey all day. I’ve had a slight sore throat….”
“Are you ready?” I called sternly, laying my paddle inboard.
“Wait, wait,” bellowed Jim, grabbing the sides.
“One,” I said, “two, THREE!”
And on the word ‘three,’ amidst wild shouts from Jimmie, I rolled hard a-port, giving my weight to the gunwale, and despite Jim’s desperate bearing to the right, the canoe cheerfully sank its lip under the smooth water and with a series of terrific splashes, roars, spouts, gulps and yells, we capsized, and there was Jimmie clambering on to the far end, and I to the stern.
“I’ll,” gasped Jim, “I’ll get you for this!”
“Now,” I explained, very business-like, “first we roll her right side up.”
“Come on down to this end,” said Jim, grimly.
“Jim, forget it,” I commanded. “Let’s get on with the experiment. This is deep water we’re in.”
“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed Jim, sinisterly, in his turn.
I started around the side of the canoe when I became aware of a tremendous sound approaching. I could faintly hear the air filled with shouts and cries and the hum and thunder of engines. From behind I saw a great cloud of spray and a small nose bounding amidst the white smother. It was the sea flea.4
From the other direction, I made out the shape of the motor cruiser, a bone in its teeth, all the party aboard leaning far out, coming helter-skelter in our direction, with a man on the bow waving frantically and yelling encouragement. From nowhere at all, another small motor boat, with a lone sportsman in it, was boring in our direction.
“Look,” I called to Jim, “the whole thing is being spoiled.”
“You wait,” prophesied Jimmie malignantly.
The sea flea reached us first, and overshot the mark, coming around us in a terrific smother of spray and kicking up a swell five feet high.
The first swell smacked into the canoe and washed my hold loose. A second terrific swell, as the sea flea curved past again, ducked me deep under and filled me with terror of being out of sight in case the crazy machine’s propeller would hit me. I rose to the surface with a wild yell of warning, only to see the bow of the cruiser, in a welter of foam, just over my head.
“Get away, get away,” I bellowed, waving.
But everybody was helping. The cruiser’s bowman heaved a big round life-preserver that narrowly missed my head. The sea flea addict was still furiously charging in short curves, this way and that, trying to get in close enough to cut my head off. The third motor boat had run its nose fair into the middle of the muddle. And Jimmie, who had been astraddle the canoe, now slid off the end of it and stood pleasantly up to his neck on solid bottom, still wearing on his face an expression of the uttermost malignance.
“It’s over my head,” I roared.
“Hold hard to the canoe,” he yelled.
“I’ve got it,” I spluttered, as another of the storm of swells of all our rescuers engulfed me.
“Good,” yelled Jim, and gave the canoe such a twist that what hold I had on it was wrenched from my grasp, and deep down I went.
It was, however, Jimmie, aided by several willing and friendly hands from the deck of the cruiser and the small boat and the sea flea, who finally dragged me in three various directions into safety.
“We heard your cries, fortunately,” gasped the captain of the cruiser. And everybody was filled with tenderness and care for us and threw blankets around us and pounded us on the back, and several of the ladies thought we should be sat upon and resuscitated by their gentlemen friends.
“If we hadn’t heard your cries for help,” said the fellow who had flung the 30-pound life preserver at my head, “you’d be goners by now.”
“It was my friend,” I stated, “who did the shouting. We have him to thank.”
“If I hadn’t been looking in your direction,” said the sea flea addict, who had climbed, life jacket and all into the social atmosphere of the cruiser’s cockpit, “I’d never have seen you go over, you went over that easy. Ah, a canoe is a wicked craft.”
“No doubt you are quite right,” I informed him stiffly, and glancing overside at the absurd animated shingle he rides on.
“Gentlemen,” said the captain of the cruiser, who had the word captain embroidered in gold on his cap, “we’ll tow your canoe ashore. But I might recommend to you both as an old hand on water, that unless you are familiar with canoes, you should never risk your lives in them.”
“Thank you,” I assured him. “Again, thank you.”
“George,” said the lady who appeared to be the real captain of the cruiser, “I don’t believe the little one realizes how near disaster he came.”
She was quite better-class about the whole thing.
But they took us both ashore in the cruiser and towed the canoe behind, and we paid the canoe owner 50 cents, and got dressed in the boathouse and went for a hot-dog and other amusements of Sunnyside, not talking about canoes at all.
Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on July 1, 1944 as “In the Drink”.
- This is the old myth that you should wait 30-60 minutes after eating before going in the water. Apparently it originated in an old Scout handbook. ↩︎
- Of course, nowadays, the best advice it to wear a properly fitting life jacket. ↩︎
- The cane seats are the mesh seats in a canoe. The thwarts are structural crossbars that prevent the hull from warping. ↩︎
- The Sea Flea is a small homemade motor boat popularized in Muskoka. ↩︎
This was a comic included in the Goblin Magazine from 1924.
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 5, 1941.
Faraway pools look better to fishermen. But these two anglers can’t agree on which faraway pool is best
“Have you seen,” inquired Jimmie Frise, “those new sectional punts for carrying on a trailer behind your car?”1
“I’ve seen, boats that you could haul on trailers,” I admitted, “but not sectional.”
“This new one is a swell rig,” enthused Jim. “If you get a boat small enough to haul on a trailer, it is too small for comfort on the water. But this sectional punt is in two parts. It’s cut in half in the middle. You just bolt the front and back half together when you want to use it. And when you want to travel overland, you just unbolt it, hoist the stern half, which is like, box, on to the trailer wheels. Then you sow the front half in the box, and there you are.”
“That sounds pretty good,” I agreed.
“You can put all the rest of your junk in the outfit, too,” explained Jim. “It is as handy as any trailer, yet it’s a boat.”
“Maybe after the war,” I suggested, “we might be able to get one.”
“We’ll have one for our first bass fishing trip – this week,” cried Jim. “We can rent one. A chap I know had built a dozen of them this past winter and has them all ready for rent right now. In fact, I spoke for one for this week-end.”
“Now, that’s what I call enterprise,” I congratulated him. “There is always a lot of risk about renting a boat at the opening of the bass season. You get to where you want to fish and there isn’t a boat for love or money.”
“We’re all set this year,” said Jimmie. “We can go one place and if we don’t like it, we can unhitch in half an hour and be on our way to a better place. Who’s in the party this trip?”
“Just you and me” I said firmly. “Two’s company, three’s a crowd.”
“Aw,” said Jim, “it’s livelier with a gang.”
“All right, who will we take?” I demanded. “If we take Bill, he’ll go to sleep. If we take Vic, he’ll be fishing all the time we’re getting lunch, and the minute we’re through, he’ll see a fish rise and dash off just when the dishes are to be done.”
“How about Bumpy?” asked Jim.
“He’ll want to go ashore and sun bathe,” I protested. “And if we take Skipper, he’ll take charge of the party before we’re out of the city and boss us all over the place.”
Lure of the Bass
“See,” said Jim. “You want to be boss.”
“Boss nothing,” I retorted. “Let’s just go alone. A bass fishing trip is better with only two. Anyway, the boat will only hold two comfortably.”
“Any boat will hold three comfortably,” said Jim, “on a fishing trip. I like an extra man on the trip because then the majority can rule. If two of the three of us want to go one direction, then it’s easy to decide. But with only two of us in the boat, and want to go different directions …?”
“Now, when did we ever have any trouble agreeing which way to go?” I snorted.
“Okay, okay,” said Jim hastily. “I just thought it would be nice to have a third man.”
“The trouble with our friends, Jim,” I explained, “is, they are all fishermen. They all want to fish. And what’s more, they all have ideas as to where the best place to fish is, and how to fish and everything else. What we ought to cultivate is a friend who hates fishing. A guy that just likes to come along on the party. A guy that prefers to row the boat than fish. Somebody fond of camp fires and cooking and washing dishes, and that sort of thing. There are such people. We ought to cultivate one of them.”
“He wouldn’t mind cleaning fish, either,” added Jim.
“That’s the sort I mean,” I agreed.
“Well, we’ll go alone then,” said Jim. “And I’ll make all arrangements about the boat. And it’s agreed we fish Stoney Lake?”
“Agreed,” I said heartily, for Jim had shown me some grand bass he had caught in Stoney.
“Bass,” said Jim, lovingly and rolling the word around in that dreamy way you sometimes take a word and fondle it. “Bass. Bassssssss! What a lovely word. And what a swell fish.”
“Inch for inch,” I quoted the famous Dr. Henshall, “and pound for pound, the gamest fish that swims.”
“Isn’t the English language wonderful?” cried Jim. Think of that word bass. Bassssssss. It fairly pictures the fish. Short, sharp, rough, with the hisssss of a leaping fish or a racing line in it.”
“The word bass,” I informed him, “comes from the Dutch and Scandinavian word, barsh, meaning bristle. Barsh refers to the spines or bristles which are characteristic of bass. The word brush comes from the same root. So the English corrupted the word into bass, from barsh.”
“Corrupted?” scoffed Jim. “They took a silly word and made a beautiful word out of it. Bassssssssss!”
“It’s just the associations in your mind that make it beautiful,” I informed him. “A foreigner would think the word bass an ugly word.”
“Ah,” ignored Jimmie, his eyes raised, “what lovely associations. A little breeze riffling the water along the rocky shores. The reeds bending and waving. The lily pads lifting their hems. The chuckle of the water on the sides of the boat. And me sitting there, quiet as a mouse, casting and retrieving along the shore, selecting each spot to drop my lure, and trying, with art and science, to lay it exactly in that right spot…!”
“It’s the explosion of the strike I like,” I cut in. “No form of fishing has quite the excitement of that sudden explosion from the quiet depths when a bass comes up and takes the fly or the plug.”
“Anyway,” said Jim, “We agree that bass fishing is hard to beat.”
The Sectional Boat
Which closed the discussion until the next day we were well on the way to Stoney Lake with our curious boat trailing merrily behind us. The trailer wheels had a mere skeleton platform on them to which you bolted the rear half of the boat, a sort of box, and into this the front or pointed half nested. In these empty halves was plenty of room for storing all our fishing gear and luggage. It was a mighty nice little outfit. Jim wanted to go to the south end of Stoney, because it was a west wind that would make the return home easy. I preferred the north end of Stoney because, though I had never been on the lake, it was certainly less inhabited than the south end where there were farms and highways and villages.
“Of course,” said Jim, “I’ve only been on the lake about two hundred times. I wouldn’t know anything about it…”
“There are hundreds of people born right on the lake,” I retorted, “who don’t know where the good fishing is.”
So we agreed to go to the north end of the lake, where the map certainly showed fewer indications of habitation.
“Isn’t it a pity old Skipper isn’t along?” said Jim, apropos of nothing. “We’d have plenty of room in that punt for him.”
“Three in a boat is too crowded,” I replied.
“Let’s go right on to the north end of the lake,” suggested Jim, “and inquire at the gas station where’s the best place to launch the boat.”
“Listen, Jim,” I delivered, “what does a gas station know about where to fish for bass? All he knows is where the bass have been caught. We don’t want to know where they have been caught. We want to know where they haven’t been caught.”
“Okay, okay,” said Jim. “And how are we to find out where they haven’t been caught?”
And after scouting down a few side roads at the north end of Stoney, we came to a lonely looking bit of road, just a couple of ruts leading down to a farm where the farmer assured us it would be perfectly all right to park our car and launch our boat on his shore.
The shore looked magnificent. There were bouldery beaches stretching out in points, where the bass would just love to congregate in the evening to seek their favorite of all food crawfish. There were small bays filled with reeds and rushes and lily pads, where bass would love to take shelter from the sun during the heat of the day, keeping a lively eye skinned all the while for any frog that might venture to hop around the lily pads.
“Jim,” I said, “I can fairly smell bass.”
“Many’s the day’s limit I’ve taken out of it,” he replied, “though mostly at the southern end.”
We lifted all our gear out of the boat trailer and lifted the bow half out of the big box which was the stern half. We unbolted the stern half from the axle framework and laid them end to end. It was no trick at all to bolt them together. Steel lined holes for the bolts made a watertight joint and in a jiffy we were lifting the punt down to the shore.
“We’ll row turn about,” said Jim. “On the hour, we change.”
“Okay, you row the first hour,” I proposed, “because I’ve got my rod all set up anyway.”
“Okay,” agreed Jim. And stowing our tackle aboard, we pushed off.
“Turn down,” I suggested. “I like the look of those little bays.”
“Let’s turn north,” protested Jimmie, “and then it will be easier coming back down with the wind.”
“You’ve got wind on the brain,” I told him. “There isn’t enough breeze to make any difference.”
“Look at those gravelly points,” said Jim, still rowing north. “Try at those points and if we don’t get anything, I’ll turn back down the shore.”
“I should think the man who has to do the fishing,” I stated, “should have the say as to where he wants to fish.”
“I gave in,” pointed out Jim, “about which end of the lake we’d come to. Now let me pick the direction we’ll fish.”
“My dear man,” I said, “it is not a question of taking turns. It’s a question of where the obviously best fishing is. Anybody who knows bass fishing can see that those little bays…”
Jimmie dug the oars in so violently that he nearly dumped me over the back of the punt. It is curious how a man’s temper seems to get on edge the minute he goes out of doors. The greatest test of a man is to get him in the great out-of-doors. That’s where the seams show.
“Cast there,” said Jim, slackening the oars and indicating the first gravel bar.
“No self-respecting bass,” I said, “would be exposing himself in broad sunlight on a shallow bar like that.”
Jim rowed a few boat lengths farther on and at the next point, where large boulders beneath the water gave shade for any crawfish-hunting bass, I cast my plug and started to retrieve. It had only come four or five slow turns of the reel before there was that sudden glorious explosion and boil in the water, and when I tightened the line on him, he came out in a furious leap that was practically part of the original rush.
“What did I tell you?” yelled Jim.
“A stray one,” I said, “but a beauty.” He dived deep to see what was the matter. Then he came to the top again in an enraged rush, my line hissing through the water, until like a bronze bomb he burst out and shook himself madly, like a bulldog shaking a rat. But my plug clung to his jaws. And after a little while, and two or three more leaps, he began to tire and I told Jim to sink the net.
“Now, now,” I commanded, “sink it. Put it under the water and I’ll lead him over the net. None of this scooping…”
Jim, all eagerness as the bass came slowly fighting his last; sank the net well under water and I started to lead the bass over it. But Jim, to my horror, suddenly made a vicious swipe with the net. The rim caught the bass amidships. With a desperate shake, the bass jerked the plug’s hooks into the mesh of the net and with a wriggle, he was free. Over the rim he slid and back into the water.
I was speechless.
“Of all the…” I said apoplectically.
“Okay,” said Jim grimly. “Okay, okay, okay.”
And to my astonishment, he seized the oars and began rowing straight to shore.
“I’ll take the front half, you take the back half,” he said between his teeth. “You go south. I’ll go north. Okay, okay, okay.”
The boat grounded on the pebbles, Jim leaped out and hauled her half ashore. With a twirl of his fingers, he undid the bolts. And then he calmly shoved my half off, and tossed one of the oars in after me.
“See you later,” he cried cheerfully.
“Jim, don’t be an ass,” I shouted. “This thing won’t steer.”
“It’ll steer a lot better than mine,” called Jim, shoving his half of the boat in. And it was true; because the pointed end of the punt was a pretty skimp barnacle of a craft on the water.
As Modestly as Possible
“Jim,” I protested, “this is ridiculous.”
“It suits me fine,” he called back. “Now you can go south as far you like.”
So I seized the oar, there being nothing else to do, and experimented at propelling half a boat. It was tippy. It was cranky. It went where it listed. But somehow I got south and around the first point. And not until I was out of sight of Jim did I start to fish again.
My prognostication as to the good fishing spot was right. Almost on my first cast, I was into a fine two-pound bass. And when I had tired him out, I drew alongside, sank my net, drew him over the net and gently lifted. And there he was in the boat.
“Now,” I said aloud to myself, “that’s the way to do it.”
In the next hour, I had 15 strikes, and connected with two, both of which got free, due to the unwieldy character of my half-boat. But in less than two hours, in those reedy bays, I have five of the most beautiful bass you ever saw. And then I heard the car horn blowing mournfully.
“Poor Jim,” I said. “Fed up and ready for home already. That shows what comes of a hasty temper.”
And I thought of him whirling round and round in that front half of a boat, casting vainly on those barren rocky bars and getting nothing but exercise. The horn honked sadly.
“All right, all right,” I said, looking happily at my five glowing beauties laid out in a row in the bottom of the craft.
This would be a lesson to him. This would show him that it is best to follow the lead and counsel of a bass-wise man.
I reeled up and took the oar. I paddled back against the wind and it was, hard but cheerful going, with five such fine object lessons on the floor. When I rounded the point, I could see Jimmie sitting abjectly on the running board of the car, his half of the boat pulled up on the beach waiting for me.
I decided to be magnanimous; to let the whole matter rest. I would carry my five fish up to the car as modestly as possible.
“Well, sir,” I called out as I drew near, “it’s a pity to quit.”
“I’ve got my limit,” replied Jim happily, “so I thought you might want the other half of the boat.”
When I beached my half, Jim came down and looked at my five in the boat.
“Mine are just mates to those,” he said, holding out his hand. So we shook.
“It’s been a swell afternoon,” I gloated.
“It’s a pity we didn’t have Skipper along,” said Jim.
“Good old Skipper,” I said. “We should have brought him.”
Editor’s Notes:
By Gregory Clark, July 5, 1924.
Ralph Connable’s Puckish Pranks at Expense of Well known Citizens, Afford No End of Fun – Delights in Exposing the Four Flush – A Master in the Art of Disguise
It was the rush hour in the shower bath room I of the Lambton Golf and Country Club.
In from their game, half a hundred members were splashing and toweling vigorously, standing in Grecian statuary groups about the locker room and the showers recounting the tales of the day’s sport, others hurrying their ablutions so as to join the ladies on the clubhouse verandah.
The door from the outer world quietly opened.
And in walked a lady!
A lady of vampish and rakish demeanor. A lady in a huge picture hat, a green blouse, a short sport skirt disclosing flaming red silk hose, her face painted and powdered.
And undismayed by the scene before her, the half hundred men in a state of nature, she advanced into the locker room and headed down the aisle of lockers for the shower room.
The members fled in every direction, shouting, exclaiming, hiding behind lockers, diving under tables.
The lady reached the shower room. Thunderation and pandemonium broke loose. The gents under the showers screamed and ducked and fled.
“I’m looking,” said the apparition, in a shrill voice, “for my gentleman friend.”
Then she turned, and started with the utmost plomb from the room.
Colonel Goodie Gibson, clad in a Turkish towel, strode up to the lady, and in an accusing voice, looking her in the eyes, exclaimed:
“I know you! I know those eyes-“
“Well, you certainly should, colonel,” retorted the lady in a loud voice, “We’ve been out together often enough.”
But the jig was up.
Before the lady could make her escape a band of scantily clad husky men had seized the frail form and were tearing at her garments, pawing at her hat, and generally treating her in a most unladylike and ungentlemanly fashion.
But when the hat came off a wig came with it, and there before, the shouting multitude was disclosed the close cropped white head of Ralph Connable, the most incorrigible, irrepressible, practical joker in the city of Toronto.
A Man of Many Activities
Ralph Connable is the head of the great Woolworth organization in Canada – which should be quite enough to squelch the spirit of the average man. In addition to handling the executive work of the greatest chain store system in the dominion, he finds time to be a front rank Rotarian, to devote many hours over a long period of years to promoting public golf courses in Toronto – being the founder and the mainspring of the present Humber Valley course, and to entertain lavishly in his fine home on the Hill.
And on top of all that he has the reputation of the greatest practical joker in the city, whose name is connected with some legend or other in the minds of every business man in the city.
Mr. Connable has no hesitation about dressing up. He has devoted a good deal of time to developing disguises for himself and others for the sport of playing jokes. He has had for several years a set of fake false teeth which all his friends know well. He had them made by a dentist to fit over his own teeth. They are crooked and of the variety known as “buck” teeth, and they render him utterly unrecognizable even by friends.
He also carries a set of disreputable old grey whiskers. By putting in the teeth and slapping on the chin whiskers, Ralph Connable can transform himself in an instant from the snappy big business executive into a pathetic and dowdy old man.
He was a guest at one of the Toronto golf clubs which aspires to be THE club, the elect and exclusive club of the city. It is one of the customs of this club for everyone to gather on the verandah overlooking the eighteenth green, to observe the play of the members. It is a sort of social ceremony to be sitting on that verandah.
Such little social holinesses as this are the meat Mr. Connable loves above all delicacies.
Coming over the hill to the eighteenth hole, when all the wit and beauty and wealth of this club was posed on the verandah, he inserted his teeth, donned his, whiskers, and, bending nearly double, he played the last hole looking like a doddering old man of ninety-eight. The verandah was scandalized at such a golf performance by so old a man, and was thrown into a heap when Mr. Connable removed the disguise and bowed to the gallery.
Last year in Montreal he was drawn to play in the golf tournament against a Mr. Gneddiger. a wealthy fur merchant of Montreal. They had a good game, but Mr. Connable was defeated by his partner. Mr. Gneddiger thanked Mr. Connable for a fine game, invited him to come and see him every time he was in Montreal, and so forth, and they parted. When taking the train at the clubhouse station half an hour later Mr. Connable, disguised with the teeth, stepped up and greeted Mr. Greddiger and asked him what kind of a game he’d had.
“Oh, not so bad,” growled Mr. Gneddiger, in the tone of one who had been bored for the last two hours.
“Who were you playing?”
“Oh, a fellow from Toronto – fellow named Connable!” said Mr. Gneddiger.
“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Connable, removing the disguise, “I thought you said we had a fine game!”
Without a word. Mr. Gneddiger walked down to the far end of the platform and was seen no more.
The Three Bearded Footmen
Mr. Connable used to chum around with Sir John Eaton and is a great friend of Lady Eaton. At the Eaton mansion, Mr. Connable was always impressed by the retinue of butlers, footmen and servants that waited on table.
On one occasion he had Lady Eaton and another lady who was a guest of Lady Eaton’s to his home for dinner.
When the guests were all seated for dinner no servants appeared. The party waited for several moments, and nothing happened.
In some embarrassment, Mr. Connable begged to be excused, and went from the dining room.
In an instant, in came a servant in full evening dress, with a huge black beard down to his waist, followed by the maids, and bearing on a tray the first course, which was handed about by the maids.
The impressive looking footman left the dining room and then Mr. Connable appeared, all beaming, and rejoined his guests at table.
The next course was again delayed. No servants appeared. Expressing apologies once more, Mr. Connable again left the table to see what was wrong, and hardly had he left the room before in walked a more imposing footman than the last, a man with a huge bushy red beard and fierce red hair, bearing the second course. As soon as he retired from the room Mr. Connable promptly appeared and took his place at table.
By this time the guests as well as Mr. Connable’s family were in something of a state.
When the third course failed to appear, and Mr. Connable left the room, and a waiter with a huge beard a bright bluish tint entered, Lady Eaton could no longer retain her mirth and she burst out laughing.
The blue bearded footman, with an angry gesture, snatched off the beard, disclosing Mr. Connable as the functionary himself.
“There you go!” cried Mr. Connable. “Spoiling everything! I go to your house and a whole t army of servants comes marching in. Then you come to my house and I try to put up a little impression and you go and give it all away…!”
But before the evening was out, the strangers present were thoroughly acquainted with their host.
At the Montreal tournament mentioned above, Mr. Connable, with his whiskers on, and collar turned up, asked A. E. Ames if he could carry his bag. Mr. Ames refused.
“I’m an old man and I have to make my living,” whined Mr. Connable.
“But there’s no need to carry it,” said Mr. Ames, distressed. “Where would you carry it?”
“You darned old tightwad,” said Mr. Connable.
And when Mr. Ames turned indignantly, it was Ralph Connable that was facing him.
Cold Shouldered at Church
Mr. Connable set out, a couple of years ago, to visit the various churches of the city dressed as a poor man, to see what reception he would have, and he intended to give the results to the newspapers. But he was so successful, both ways, that he made up his mind not to go any further with it, as the papers would not print the names of the churches where he received the cold shoulder.
Two churches – big north end churches – gave Mr. Connable an unmistakable snub. Three smaller churches took him to their bosoms.
In old clothes, looking as decrepit as possible, he visited a certain uptown church, was shudderingly showed into a back seat by an outraged usher, and when after the ceremony Mr. Connable tried to enter into the fellowship of the little fraternization which takes place in the aisles and vestibule, was snubbed flatly by managers and members alike.
A week later, in his silk hat and frock coat, Mr. Connable was greeted effusively by the same usher, was conducted to a front seat and was welcomed warmly by managers and members after the service.
“That’s one church,” says he, to his acquaintances, “I didn’t go to again.”
In three small churches he was welcomed, accepted, given treatment in his old clothes that could not have been exceeded for politeness and cordiality if he had had on his topper and cutaway.
He takes a puckish delight in disclosing the four flush.1
He had a neighbor, the story goes, that bragged of his charity. Not a churchgoer, but a charitable man. In a Salvation Army hat that had been given him to help in a Salvation Army drive, Mr. Connable called to see this neighbor, and was refused any assistance. He then disclosed himself as Ralph Connable. The same neighbor had a visit from him dressed as a tramp, who came to the back door and begged a meal. He was driven off with a threat of the police. Again he disclosed himself as the neighbor.
Keeper of the Hounds
At one of Sir John Eaton’s dinner parties, Ralph Connable protested to Sir John that all these common fellows went in to dinner ahead of him, and what he craved was some distinction, some badge of rank that would entitle him to enter immediately behind Sir John.
So Sir John dubbed him Keeper of the Hounds, though Sir John didn’t have a hound to his name, and this entitled the wearer of the title to precede all the common herd to the dinner table.
As a lark, Mr. Connable had cards engraved “Ralph Connable, Keeper of the Hounds to Sir John Eaton.”
Once crossing the border at Detroit, he got into a slight difficulty with the customs officers, and happening to have one of these cards amongst his others, he tendered it to the officers who exclaimed, on seeing the title:
“Is that so!”. Waved his hand, ignored the trouble, and spent a pleasant few minutes listening to Mr. Connable telling about the vast pack of huge hounds Sir John kept, hundreds of hounds, thousands of hounds.
One of his staff in the Woolworth organization is a teetotaler. He was making a trip to the States, and was sitting talking with a group of men in the chair car when the inspector, coming along and opening his bag, disclosing to all eyes a large empty quart whiskey bottle right on top of the contents of the bag.
There was no need to query who had done the trick.
A Caller for Mr. Mathews
Mr. R. C. Mathews of Toronto is a gentleman of dignity. He was seated in the chair car of the New York train just before it pulled out of the Union Station, the car was filled with Toronto people, everyone alert for the beginning of the journey, when in rushed Mr. Connable bearing a huge bandbox, and exclaiming loudly:
“Oh, Mr. Mathews, Mr. Mathews!”
He rushed up and laid the box down beside Mr. Mathews’ chair where all could see and began rummaging in it.
“I had a terrible time,” cried Mr. Connable. “I hunted all over the city. I’ve been in every store on Yonge street, but I got it. I got it!”
And he produced from the box triumphantly a large celluloid collar.
Ignoring Mr. Mathews’ bewildered protests he held up the collar admiringly.
“All you have to do is give it a lick and a wipe on your sleeve and it’s as good as new.”
The train started, and Mr. Connable, protesting that it was no trouble, no trouble at all, fled from the car.
Mr. J. Macdonald, head of the big dry-goods of house of that name, is a fancier of fancy vests. He has a collection of them of which he is very proud, made of strange and beautiful materials, and Mr. Macdonald wears them in public without a qualm.
One day Ralph Connable landed into the club wearing the most eye-puncturing vest conceivable, a vest of dark velvet, brocaded, and embroidered with silk flowers and patterns in scarlet, green, blue and gold. It was a beautiful vest, a gorgeous vest, and with his coat thrown open, proudly, he stalked through the club, and bowed most ostentatiously to Mr. John Macdonald.
Not only did the vest outrival anything Mr. Macdonald had ever appeared in, but this magnificent waistcoat was of velvet all around, and was embroidered at the back as well as in the front, to prove which Mr. Connable, in the dignified precincts of the club, removed his coat and paraded about the rooms, and taking particular pains to pass Mr. Macdonald.
Censured the Road Hog
Mr. Connable is an ardent motorist and drives a huge Pierce-Arrow very skillfully. Motoring out to golf one day, he got behind a Ford that did not make way when he tooted his siren, but merely put on speed and held to the centre of the road. Mr. Connable horned again and again, but the Ford refused to give way.
So he laid one wheel off the pavement and got past by a swift maneuver, then he turned his huge car across the highway, blocking the Ford’s way, and stepped out.
Drawing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, he advanced to meet the Ford.
“Why didn’t you make way?” he demanded.
“Well, I was going at the legal speed. I don’t have to make way if I go at the lawful speed,” answered the other, eyeing the handcuffs with some alarm.
“I’ve a good mind,” said Mr. Connable, jangling the handcuffs thoughtfully, “to place you under arrest.”
He made no claims to being a magistrate or a policeman. He let the handcuffs do the talking.
“It is motorists like you who create all the trouble on the highways,” went on Mr. Connable. “You ought to know that the law is that when another motorist signals to go by, you must let him pass. You look like a decent sort of fellow, so I will let it pass. But if I ever hear of this again it will go hard with you.”
Pocketing the handcuffs, he got into the car and drove sadly on.
This Time Joke was on Him
He was summoned for speeding near Oakville. When he appeared before the court he was asked if he had anything to say.
“Indeed I have!” exclaimed Mr. Connable. “Judge, were you ever attacked by a swarm of bees?”
“Bees!” said the court.
“Yes, sir, great big bumble bees, hundreds of them, swarms of them. Here I was quietly driving along the highway when suddenly a swarm of bees attacked me, and I put on speed, and they pursued me, and the faster I went the faster they followed, and I HAD to step on it, judge, to get away…”
The judge studied the defendant intently.
“Did you get stung?” asked the judge at last.
“No,” admitted Mr. Connable.
“Well, then, you will be now: Twelve dollars and seventy-five cents please,” announced his worship.
Another time, Mr. Connable was summoned for speeding out Whitby way. To this court he said, in extenuation of his offense:
“Yes, Judge, I was speeding.
“But only last week the Ontario Motor League, of which I am a member, sent around letters, asking us to send in the numbers of motorists we saw speeding or driving recklessly, so that the league could help put an end to that great public menace.
“Well, sir, judge, if a fellow didn’t go whizzing past me on your highway out there, at a fearful rate, so, remembering my duty to the Motor League, I pursued him in order to get his number. And that was, when your policeman took my number.”
“Did you get the other man’s number?” asked the judge.
“No, on account of the dust, I didn’t.”
“Well, you look like an honest fellow,” said the judge. “Case dismissed.”
But the fun and frolic in the make-up of Mr. Connable are simply the surplus flow from his heart of the milk of human kindness which makes him one of the city’s greatest philanthropists, whose name is on every worthy subscription. If not on the list of the committee, who feels no compunction about assisting personally in drives and campaigns, who takes the most practical personal interest in his hundreds of employees, and who has been put, as every golfer in this city knows, to no small expense of money and time in the effort he has been making for the past ten years to secure for Toronto free public, golf courses.
Editor’s Notes:
- Four flush is an old-fashioned word meaning a bluffer. ↩︎
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 26, 1946.
“Personally,” declared Jimmie Frise, “I don’t like it.”
“Jim,” I submitted, “business is business,”
“Some things,” asserted Jim, “are too sacred for business to intrude into. And fishing is one of them.”
“All we’ve got do,” I pleaded, “is take these two birds on a fishing trip. They’ve got their own car. We don’t have to travel with them. We arrive at Henderson’s lake. And old man Henderson will have the boats ready for us. You and I’ll go in one boat. They’ll go in another. To all intents and purposes, we aren’t really fishing with them at all.”
“I think Bud has got his nerve asking us to take them,” growled Jim. “Why doesn’t he look after his own business acquaintances?”
“These,” I explained, “are two big shot Yanks. They are one of Bud’s most important connections.”
“Then why doesn’t he take them fishing?” insisted Jim.
“Pawff, what does Bud know about fishing!” I laughed. “He’s a golfer.”
“Yeah,” sneered Jim, “and he’s trying to apply the morality of golf to the noble art of fishing. Golf, as anybody knows, is prostituted to business. Golf is a game designed and maintained for purposes of salesmanship. Buying and selling, putting over deals, kissing the boss’ big toe… that’s what golf is! Whenever the buyer of the big company comes to town, what do you do? Why, you take him out and let him beat you at golf. And then, sitting on the clubhouse veranda, you sell him a big bill of goods.”
“Bud tried to put these two Yanks up at his golf club,” I explained.
“Golf,” gritted Jim. “You get the idea the boss is acting a little stiff with you. So you invite him for a game of golf, let him whale the tar out of you. And everything grows rosy once more.”
“We don’t play golf, Jim,” I cautioned. “Maybe we don’t know the whole story.”
“Well, when I look at the guys who golf,” said Jim, “and compare them with the guys who go fishing, I can’t help suspect that there is something pretty cunning about golf. Did you ever notice that it is the successful business men who play golf, and the unsuccessful businessmen who fish?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” I protested. “These friends of Bud’s are pretty successful business men. Bud says they’re both millionaires.”
“Millionaires, eh?” mused Jim.
“That’s right,” I clinched, “Millionaires.”
“Any millionaires I’ve ever seen,” declared Jim, “I wouldn’t care to go fishing with.”
“Look, Jim, “I wound up, “business is business. I asked Bud if he could wangle us some lumber for the addition to the cottage. You know we’ve got to have that back end of the cottage repaired.”
“We’ve no right to any lumber,” countered Jim, “with the housing shortage. Lumber for a summer cottage…!”
“We only need a couple of hundred board feet,” I reminded. “Just enough to repair the back and put an end to those leaks that make the kitchen a mess every time it rains.”
“Did Bud say he could get us some lumber,” demanded Jim.
Blame It On Bud
“Not right away.” I admitted. “But along about August, he said he could probably get us some undressed lumber suitable for the back end of the cottage. Jim, we’ve got to do something about it!”
“Okay,” snorted Jimmie, “but we don’t have to take two millionaires fishing!”
“Bud said,” I presented, “that if we’d rescue him from the jam he’s in, he’d see we got the lumber.”
“I don’t like it,” concluded Jim.
“Look,” I begged. “For the past couple of years, Bud has been telling these guys what wonderful fishing we have up here. At conventions and things, he’s been bragging about his fishing friends. We’re his fishing friends. Now, all of a sudden, these two big shots an-ounce they are coming up to Canada. And Bud’s bluff is called. He’s simply got to show them some fishing.”
“Okay, let him,” said Jim.
“But Bud never wet a line in his life!” I cried. “He’d feel an awful fool taking two big shots fishing… both of them expert fishermen, who have fished all over the U.S.”
“Now, you look!” exclaimed Jim indignantly. “This is the opening the bass season. This is the high day of the year. This is like King’s Plate day. And you want to ruin it by taking a couple of perfect strangers fishing with us, for business reasons!”
“Please, Jim,” I coaxed, “will you get it through your head that we don’t have to travel with the guys, we don’t have to fish with them. We simply have to make arrangements for them. They’ll be as anxious, as like as not, to be by themselves as we are. We’ll send them around the south shore of Henderson’s lake and we’ll go around the north side. Maybe we’ll have to spend 15 minutes in all talking to them or having any contact whatever with them. At the end of the day, we send them on to the hotel. And we go to our own cottage.”
“They don’t come to the cottage with us?” demanded Jim.
“Not at all,” I assured. “At the end of the day, we bid them good-night, and that’s the last of them. From there on, they make their own arrangements for fishing.”
“Well…” sighed Jim doubtfully.
“Anyway,” I pointed out, “I’ve written old Henderson and reserved two boats.”
Lobby Patrol
“Good old Henderson,” smiled Jim more cheerfully, “There’s a great old character.”
“One of the best,” I agreed. “A true Canadian. It’s a pity the whole country isn’t modelled on Henderson.”
“What irks me,” said Jim, “is having to take a couple of strangers, a couple of rich, snooty strangers, with us on to old man Henderson’s lake. I look forward to seeing old Henderson as one of the high spots of my year. He refreshes. He revives. Just to meet him once a year and be near him for a little while sort of renews my Canadianism. And here we have to spoil it all by shepherding a couple of tycoons from Cleveland…”
“Chicago,” I corrected.
“I don’t care where they come from,” cracked Jim. “But just having them on our hands… a couple of cold-blooded, mercenary guys that we have to take over for business reasons… and introduce them to old Henderson! That sweet, gentle old hillbilly.”
“Forget it,” I pleaded.
I called Bud on the telephone to inform him, in that jovial, outdoorsman style, that Jim and I were all set to take his big business tycoons off his hands as soon as they arrived in town.
Bud was overjoyed. He had “built us up,” he explained, to his visitors. That’s a business expression. You build people up to one another. It makes business dealings easier. Bud assured us that we were the two greatest fishermen in Canada, in the opinion of the two gentlemen who were to arrive before night. They were driving from Chicago and were prepared push straight on to Henderson’s lake in the morning.
At supper time, Bud called me to say his important friends were at a downtown hotel having supper, and would we be good enough to come downtown right away so he could introduce us to them.
“Well, I’ve got to finish my supper…” I suggested.
But Bud explained that his friends had a couple of important business conferences to handle during the evening, and he thought if we could get the introductions over with, so as to leave them their evening free…
So I called Jim, who was at his supper. And with crumbs still on our vests, so to speak, we drove downtown and met Bud, who escorted us importantly up 10 storeys in the hotel to meet the big shots.
They were out. Bud left us standing in the deserted corridor, while he went down and scouted the dining-rooms and lobbies, without success. After about 15 minutes, he came hurrying back up to us, with that eager big business air, and told us to come and sit in the lobby for a few minutes until his friends turned up.
So we sat in the lobby about an hour, while Bud kept jumping up and exploring. It was Jim who got mad first.
“Look,” he said, rising. “Tell your friends to telephone us in the morning…”
“No, no,” cried Bud. “These are real fellows, real big shots, you’ll love to meet them. It’ll save a lot of time and, anyway, it will look a lot better if we are here to meet them. Sort of impressed, as it were. We should appear impressed…”
“Impressed my neck!” said Jim without tact. “What is this? A couple of guys want to go fishing. We’ve undertaken to show them where the fishing is. What is all this hokey- pokey about being impressed…!”
Bud looked at me very shocked.
“But look,” he said weakly. “You don’t understand. These aren’t just a couple of ordinary little tourists. These are important big business executives. It’s important to Canada. We have to make a good impression. We’ve got to appear to make something of them. After all…”
Jim, refusing to sit down in the big hotel lobby settee, gave me a long, bitter look.
“Golf,” he said hollowly.
“Jim,” I protested.
“The opening of the bass season,” pursued Jim. “The high and holy day. And what are we doing?”
We waited another half hour in the lobby and Bud’s friends did not show up. So I got a little mad, too, and explained as tactfully as I could to Bud that Jimmie and I were just a couple of homespun characters who didn’t altogether appreciate or understand the protocol, as it were, of modern business.
Meet The Boys
Bud, apparently, was prepared to spend the whole night sitting in the lobby, watching bright-eyed for his important friends. So we left him, arranging for a telephone call right after breakfast, when we would meet his friends and lead them, by car, to Henderson’s lake.
About half-past midnight, Bud telephoned me, getting me out of bed, to inform me in a very hearty and chummy voice that he was up in his friends’ room, and wouldn’t I run down just to meet the boys…
I demurred. He then cried, “Wait a minute,” and he introduced me to them in turn over the telephone. If there is anything more ghastly, at half-past midnight in a silent house with everybody gone to bed, than trying to be hearty and cheerful over the telephone to a couple of gentlemen from a far country whom you have never seen in your life, I can’t think of it.
However, after a few muffled exchanges on my part and some very cautious exchanges from the gentlemen at the hotel, I got back to bed.
And we met our friends, by arrangement, in the lobby at 8.50 a.m., with Bud there, fresh as a daisy, and balancing beautifully between telling his friends what wonderful guys and famous fishermen Jim and I were, and telling us what swell guys and important big shots his friends were…
They were just two average-looking Americans; that is, they both looked a little like General Eisenhower. If they were rich, they didn’t show it. If they were important. it wasn’t evident. If they were friends of Bud’s, they weren’t very effusive about it. They seemed bored and doubtful and a little blase. And in a hurry get going.
So Jim and I drove off, with the Americans in their big car following us.
We passed out of the city on Yonge St. We ripped off the miles northward, the Americans holding fast to our tail. We stopped a couple of times to see if they wanted a cup of coffee or anything, and they just ran their car windows down and said, “No.”
“Cold fish,” said Jim, as we led off.
“The executive type,” I explained.
“I suppose guys like them,” mused Jim, “could like fishing the same as anybody else.”
“Well, one thing,” I submitted, “they won’t be any bother to us. All we do is show them their boat and, as far as I can see, they won’t notice us again.”
“Poor Bud,” laughed Jim, “trying to warm up a couple of finnan haddies1 like them!”
“That’s the business world, Jim,” I explained. “Somebody has to be the life of the party.”
It is a fairly long drive to Henderson’s. About four hours. Occasionally the American car would sneak up uncomfortably close to my rear bumper, and I got the impression they wanted us to put on more speed. But I have my gait, and I stick to it.
It was just noon when we turned off the highway on to the road to Henderson’s lake and 20 minutes later, I lifted over the hill and saw old man Henderson’s well-remembered layout spread before us along the margin of the lake called after him.
The Persuasive Dollar
I noticed with interest that already several boats were out on the water, the occupants busily bait casting along the rocky evergreen shores for some of the finest, gamest bass to be found in Ontario.
The Americans’ car drew off the road as Jim and I debussed and gathered our tackle together. When I reached the head of the path, I saw a boat just leaving Henderson’s small wharf. A boat with two men in it.
Old Henderson, bless his brindled hide, waved to me as I started down the path.
“Hi,” he said. “So it’s you.”
“Where’s our boats?” I inquired.
“Sorry,” said old Henderson cheerfully. “They’re let.”
“What do you mean, they’re let?” I shouted.
“First come, first served,” said old Henderson.
“But…” I spluttered, “I telephoned you two nights ago, and arranged for you to save me two boats!”
“So you did,” said old man Henderson.
“Well, then,” I burst out, “what about it? I’ve got two very important big executives come all the way from Chicago.”
“Well, you see,” said old Henderson having a spit, “business is business.”
“What do you mean, business is business?” I snorted. “Isn’t an agreement over the telephone business?”
“Business is business,” repeated old Henderson. “You was renting two boats for the one day. At $2 per, that’s $4, isn’t it?”
“What’s that got to do,” I demanded outraged, “with our agreement over the long distance telephone only two nights ago?”
“Now, along comes these gentlemen out there,” said old Henderson, “and they rent three cabins, for three days, that comes to $9. Plus all my boats at $2 per diem, for three days, that comes to… let’s see now… that comes to four boats, by golly, that comes to $24. Plus nine is $33.”2
“But a contract,” I shouted, “is a contract. You contracted to rent me two boats…”
“Business,” repeated old Henderson with another spit, “is business.”
I heard the two Americans breathing down the back of my neck.
“Hey, you…” I shouted across the water to the nearest boat, the one that had just left the wharf. “I’ve rented that boat.”
“Have you now?” replied the man in the stern, who was bailing. He tossed a pailful of water in my direction cheerily.
“Henderson,” I gritted, “you’ve got to do something about this.”
“Business,” said old Henderson, edging past me on the wharf, “is business. That’s what I always say.”
I turned and saw Bud’s two big shots already half way up the path.
Jim stood grinning off into space.
I saw the two big shots throw their tackle into the car. I saw them get in. I heard them slam the doors and they drove off in a cloud of dust.
“You can’t intrude business,” said Jim, very guardedly, “into fishing.” So we drove on to the cottage and put five hours’ work on the dock, which had been begging a little attention for three years.
Editor’s Notes:
- A Finnan haddie is a haddock that has been cured with the smoke. There was a popular song from 1938 called “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” where it is referenced. I’m not sure of the context in calling people that, but it does not sound good. ↩︎
- $33 in 1946 would be $602 in 2026. ↩︎
By Gregory Clark, June 25, 1955.
Mr. Joe Greaves is a respected member of the newspaper printing trade in Port Arthur. But 12 years ago, he was Pte. Joe Greaves.
And one day the sergeant-major said to him:
“What’s your line?”
“Driver,” offered Joe. “Jeeps, trucks, lorries.”
“Civil life?” checked the S.M.
“Printer,” said Joe. “Newspaper.”
“Ha!” said the S.M.
And that is how Joe was instructed to report himself forthwith to the Public Relations unit of the First Canadian Division, which was fighting in Italy.
And that is how Joe found himself driving a jeep with me in the back seat.
Now, I am going to make this story as respectful of myself as I can. After all, a man at my age owes himself a little consideration. Sitting there in the back seat of the jeep, I was 51 years old, which is pretty creaky in war time, even for a war correspondent. To keep up with kids of 19 or 23, with colonels only 25 years of age, and brigadiers 29, you have got to be nimble.
Nimble in the wits, if not in the joints. To begin with, I had one advantage: I had been an army officer in the previous war, and had several medal ribbons brightening up my ill-fitting battle dress. I used to carry my left chest a little forward of my right chest when dealing with these young strangers. They had no ribbons yet.
And further to confuse them, I had another heritage from the first war. In that famous war, I had been scared right up to the edge of my steel helmet, with the result that, while my hair under the helmet stayed brown, my side hair turned white. And by growing these white sideburns luxuriantly, I found I could create a sort of Foxy Grandpa1 image that puzzled the young soldiers sorely. Until they saw my green-and-gold “War Correspondent” insignia on my shoulders, they might suppose I was the Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, or perhaps the general’s uncle. Many a sentry, seeing me approach, would get the spasms trying to decide whether to give me a mere butt salute, a present arms, or to turn out the guard. Nothing like a good bunch of white sidewhiskers in war time.
Pte. Joe Greaves, on first seeing me sitting plump in the back seat of the jeep he was destined to drive for many a thousand mile in the Italian mountains, was duly impressed and confused. To add to his confusion, he told me afterwards, I reminded him of his Grandpa.
Joe was three things above all: a skilled and daring driver, a joyous laugher, and a most gentle heart.
But he hadn’t driven me more than 10 miles before he made the horrifying discovery that he had with him perhaps the worst back-seat driver in the world.
Capt. Gordon Hutton, M.C., of Vancouver, who was our conducting officer, and sat in the front seat of the jeep beside Joe, put it into the official records that he had, in his previous experience, encountered some 200 back-seat drivers, and that I was as bad as all the 200 put together.
It may be so. But, as I told them over and over, after all, God made me. Joe loved driving, and a jeep, to a young soldier, was something like a sports car. He didn’t own it. He didn’t have to pay for its upkeep. Boy!
And here were the mountain roads of Italy, hairpin turns, obstacles, vast abysses without rails to lend spice to every twist and turn…
But in the back seat, the champion back-seat driver of the world, a feeble, cantankerous old gentleman who reminded him of his grandfather, and who roused in Joe’s gentle and respectful nature every sentiment of consideration…
It was a cruel situation. And with lively interest, I set myself to watch it work itself out.
At every burst of speed down a mountain road, I bellowed. At every turn, I shouted caution. If we raced too close into the dust cloud of a 10-ton truck’s tail, I howled. Uphill, I demanded the jeep’s double-low gear. Downhill, I pleaded.
Joe’s happy laughter died. In a few days, his weight began to fall. In the mornings, he came slowly to his job. In the evenings, when he let me out at my quarters, he raced away in flying cinders. Captain Hutton watched us out of the corner of his eye.
High in the sad, agonized mountains of Molise, where surely no poet ever sang, we were hop-skip-and-jeeping over disaster-riven mountain roads and I was practically popping, when there suddenly, on a jagged turn, appeared before us the smoking wreckage of a lorry that had struck a ratchet mine a little while before. It was strewn all over the narrow road and up the steep mountainside.
Joe Greaves jammed the brakes and we crept up on the gruesome spectacle.
Joe locked the hand brake, bailed out. Up the steep bank he scrambled and started wrestling in the wreckage.
Down he bounded, bearing in his hands the steering wheel of the lorry and a broken bit of its column. He hoisted them over the side of the jeep into my lap.
“There!” he cried triumphantly. “Now you can drive too!”
Editor’s Note: This story appeared in Greg’s Choice (1961) and A Bar’l of Apples (1971).
- This is in reference to Foxy Grandpa, a comic strip that started in 1900 and was a bout an old guy who was just as mischievous as the kids in the comics at the time. “Foxy” at the time meant cunning or crafty, and not the more modern slang definition of attractive. ↩︎
The election referenced is the 1934 Ontario election, which was won by Mitch Hepburn.