6 THE IDYL OF THE SPLIT-BAMBOO 



as ink. You know what is going to happen. You 

 know you're going to be scared. You feel that you 

 shall either jump into the creek or run for home 

 when it does happen. It is manifestly impossible 

 that it should happen at all and yet that terrifying 

 thing does happen. There comes the tremendous 

 unheralded flash into the air of a crimson and white 

 and orange creature, a terrifying phantasm, a mo- 

 ment seen, then gone forever. Did you see it? 

 Why, yes; but you forgot all about your rod and it 

 certainly must have spit out the fly which it took as 

 it went down half an hour ago. You stand and 

 tremble, and look in apprehension at the spot where 

 the little wrinkles still are spreading out on the oily 

 ink. He might do that again. It takes a brave 

 man to go after trout." 



It is surprising how many notables amongst pro- 

 fessional workers and men prominent in the larger 

 affairs of business and of the State have succumbed 

 to the allurements of angling. Says Dr. van Dyke : 

 Perhaps the fisherman whom you overtook on the 

 stream " is a man whom you have known in town as 

 a lawyer or a doctor, a merchant or a preacher, 

 going about his business in the hideous respectability 

 of a high silk-hat and a long black coat. How good 

 it is to see him now in the freedom of a flannel shirt 

 and a broad-brimmed grey felt with flies stuck around 

 the band. I have had the good luck to see quite a 

 number of bishops, parochial and diocesan, in that 



