Three Men in A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

Then a pause ensued in the conversation, during which our eyes wandered round the room.  They finally rested upon a dusty old glass-case, fixed very high up above the chimney-piece, and containing a trout.  It rather fascinated me, that trout; it was such a monstrous fish.  In fact, at first glance, I thought it was a cod.

“Ah!” said the old gentleman, following the direction of my gaze, “fine fellow that, ain’t he?”

“Quite uncommon,” I murmured; and George asked the old man how much he thought it weighed.

“Eighteen pounds six ounces,” said our friend, rising and taking down his coat.  “Yes,” he continued, “it wur sixteen year ago, come the third o’ next month, that I landed him.  I caught him just below the bridge with a minnow.  They told me he wur in the river, and I said I’d have him, and so I did.  You don’t see many fish that size about here now, I’m thinking.  Good-night, gentlemen, good-night.”

And out he went, and left us alone.

We could not take our eyes off the fish after that.  It really was a remarkably fine fish.  We were still looking at it, when the local carrier, who had just stopped at the inn, came to the door of the room with a pot of beer in his hand, and he also looked at the fish.

“Good-sized trout, that,” said George, turning round to him.

“Ah! you may well say that, sir,” replied the man; and then, after a pull at his beer, he added, “Maybe you wasn’t here, sir, when that fish was caught?”

“No,” we told him.  We were strangers in the neighbourhood.

“Ah!” said the carrier, “then, of course, how should you?  It was nearly five years ago that I caught that trout.”

“Oh! was it you who caught it, then?” said I.

“Yes, sir,” replied the genial old fellow.  “I caught him just below the lock—leastways, what was the lock then—one Friday afternoon; and the remarkable thing about it is that I caught him with a fly.  I’d gone out pike fishing, bless you, never thinking of a trout, and when I saw that whopper on the end of my line, blest if it didn’t quite take me aback.  Well, you see, he weighed twenty-six pound.  Good-night, gentlemen, good-night.”

Five minutes afterwards, a third man came in, and described how he had caught it early one morning, with bleak; and then he left, and a stolid, solemn-looking, middle-aged individual came in, and sat down over by the window.