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Show Rll " Swears 0?f ktii By Richard H. Wilkinson BILL Clifford is off women for life. Dagmar Fanchon is the reason. It happened this way. Carolyn, Bill's sister, brought Dagmar up to the Clifford camp on Lake Winnepesaukee last June after school closed. The two girls had been roommates at Wellesley. Bill's mother and father and Bill were all pres-I pres-I ent. Bill was up O" Minute from New York e Fiction lor h annual tion. As a rule women didn't interest Bill very much. But this Dagmar female bowled him over. She was a brunette with dark brown eyes and a petite figure. Bill took one look at her and fell. Even so, Dagmar, who rather went for Bill also, had competition. For Bill was a man with a hobby. Fishing. He was nuts on it, and as usual had planned to spend his annual an-nual two weeks frisking about in coves and inlets and bays with rod and line. It depressed him to think he'd have to divide his time between be-tween flirting with trout and flirting flirt-ing with Dagmar. But on the second day the situation was settled. For Dagmar, Dag-mar, after listening to one of Bill's fish stories, announced that she thought fishing must be fun and would Bill take her? They set out the next morning in Bill's outboard. Bill produced a couple of Whirling Duns and proceeded to rig tackle. "Fish are sensitive to color," he explained. "On .a day as bright as this a dull fly does the trick." They entered a cove, cut the motor mo-tor and drifted. "We'll be sure to land something here," Bill explained. ex-plained. He cast and Dagmar cast. Very patiently Bill unsnarled her line from an overhanging bough and explained how the thing was done. Dagmar nodded and tried again. 1HEY fished for an hour and failed to land the big one Bill promised. It grew cloudy and the sun disappeared. "Ah," Bill said, "We'd better change to a bright fly." Dagmar suddenly said: "There's something pulling on my line!" "You've got a bite!" he yelled. "Start reeling in!" He got up and stumbled over a creel. When he looked up Dagmar was holding her line clear of the water. A ten-inch trout . was dangling dan-gling on the hook. "No!" Bill yelled. "That's not the way! You've got to play him!" But Dagmar didn't understand. She began swinging the fish like a pendulum. Presently she caught the line on the up swing and held it, the 10-incher squirming on the hook. iit OOK out!" Bill yelled. "You'll "lose him! Don't do that! You've got to play him! Bring him in with a net!" But Dagmar said: "I can't see what's wrong with this method. After all, the idea is to catch fish, isn't it?" And she dropped the trout, hook, line and all in the bottom of the boat. Bill made a lunge at her rod, but he tripped again, fell sidewise. The outboard wabbled. Dagmar, caught off balance, threw out her hands to brace herself, missed the gunwale and went sprawling over- Very patiently Bill unsnarled her line from an overhanging bough and . explained how the thing was done. board. Bill was already in the water, and it wasn't until he'd gone down and come up again spluttering, splutter-ing, that he remembered he could not swim. He yelled, splashing around with his hands and shipping ship-ping a lot of water. He went down again and came up. Then suddenly he felt a pair of hands grabbing him underneath the shoulders. He clutched at the hands wildly, and something hit him a stunning blow on the jaw. When Bill opened his eyes he was lying on shore. Dagmar was close by, wringing out her dress. Bill sat up. "What happened?" he asked. Dagmar smiled: "You tell me." Bill thought back, and the picture his memory conjured was most numiliating. Right then and there ne made his resolve that he was off omen for life. Unless, of course, ne marries Dagmar Fanchon. |