"Destiny," said the old man, "sure wasn't working worth a hoot for that hopper, was it?"
Sutton sat bolt upright, stammering. "What was that you said?"
"Don't mind me," the old man told him. "I go around mumbling to myself. Sometimes people hear me and think that I'm crazy."
"But destiny? You said something about destiny."
"Interested in it, lad," said the old man. "Wrote a story about it once. Didn't amount to much. Used to mess around some, writing, in my early days."
Sutton relaxed and lay back.
A dragonfly skimmed the water's surface. Far up the bank, a small fish jumped and left a widening circle in the water.
"About this fishing," said Sutton. "You don't seem to care whether you catch anything or not."
"Rather not," the old man told him. "Catch something and you got to take it off the hook. Then you got to bait up again and throw the hook back in the river. Then you got to clean the fish. It's an awful sight of work."
He took the pipe out of his mouth and spat carefully into the river.