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. ↩︎
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