1 66 FISHING IN RIVER, STREAM, AND LOCH 



always at home in the limited domains, and yet nobody 

 knew exactly where to have him. Now he was under 

 this stone, now behind that other one ; and again he 

 would be lazily flipping his fins among the roots of 

 the alder over the way. So the banks were planted 

 thickly with respectable gentlemen of various condi- 

 tions, though all of the City. Some were in the full 

 swing of business through the week ; others had retired 

 to suburban villas, and were killing time, on a com- 

 petency. Those were usually attired in glossy broad- 

 cloth ; these in tweeds of fantastic patterns. Each had 

 an elaborate apparatus of rods, &c., with a formidable 

 basket, though the door of the inn was almost within 

 arm's length. Jealousy was out of the question ; for 

 though all of them professed to be sanguine in the 

 extreme, nobody in his heart believed in a capture. 

 On the contrary, they struck up close friendship on the 

 strength of their common failures ; they formed them- 

 selves into informal clubs for luncheon and dining 

 purposes ; they called for bottle after bottle of fruity 

 port, and bathed, metaphorically speaking, in brimmers 

 of brandy and soda-water. Some of them took a 

 rather unfair advantage, lingering on till the middle of 

 the week ; and while nobody lost by that ungenerous 

 assiduity, the landlord gained enormously. It was a 

 dark day for him when that trout mysteriously disap- 

 peared : some people said it was owing to the machina- 

 tions of a poaching ostler, who had been dismissed at 

 the request of a keeper in the neighbourhood. Yet 

 for long the suburban fishermen came back, hoping 



