SOME WRITERS ON THE GENTLE CRAFT 191 



was one of those boys who were born fishermen. " Of 

 all the signs of the Zodiac," as he observes in his 

 opening sentence, " undoubtedly ' the fish with glit- 

 tering scales ' ruled my horoscope." And all through 

 his life, whatever the importunate " distractions " of 

 graver business, he always returned in his ample 

 intervals of leisure with redoubled ardour to his early 

 passion. Like Kit North, he goes back with affec- 

 tionate enthusiasm to the circumstances of his first 

 becoming possessor of a rod, and the capture of his 

 first fish. How many of his readers could tell stories 

 almost similar stories defining themselves down to 

 their most minute details, as they take shape and 

 substance from the mists of memory. Prowling along 

 the river-bank in search of minnows, " I came," he 

 says, " upon two boys apparently possessing a joint- 

 interest in a fishing-rod, which was projected over a 

 willow-bush. Youth is a period of freemasonry, and 

 I was soon on good terms with the strangers, who 

 proudly exhibited the results of their sport three 

 small eels strung upon a willow twig." A not ignoble 

 envy, and the contemplation of the magnificent booty, 

 stirred his small soul to its depths ; and so he wheedled 

 a fond mother out of eighteenpence, which he invested 

 in the purchase of a two-piece rod. Nor was it long 

 after that ere he " blooded " the much-valued acquisi- 

 tion, though more by good-luck than skilful manage- 

 ment. While playing leap-frog with some companions, 

 they had baited their rods, and stuck them over the 

 stream. The cry arose of a sudden, " There's a bite at 



