THE JOYS OF ANGLING 29 



balm for the jaded or worried mind. This work is 

 light and innately fascinating. How it would have 

 been welcomed by many persons whom the writer 

 has known, while monotonously convalescent from 

 exasperating illness or accident; how it would have 

 sweetened and shortened the days and have proven 

 hypnotic at night for many a weary traveler along 

 the road to restored bodily health and mental se- 

 renity. Patients often read and read during a 

 forced period of shutting-in until they can't read any 

 longer, and don't know what in the world next to 

 do to alleviate the tedium of the dragging hours and 

 days. We escaped this experience during an eight- 

 weeks' quarantine for scarlet fever, in beguiling 

 many an hour by winding rod-joints with silk, satis- 

 fied that the subsequent coats of varnish preceded 

 by an alcohol bath would prove effectively disin- 

 fectant. It was during this incarceration that first 

 we learned of the virtues of pinochle; and the feel- 

 ing nightly adieu of our teacher Jones, repeated each 

 day with increasing unction, comes back to us as we 

 write these words the place was the City Hos- 

 pital : " Thank God ! one more day less in the pest- 

 house." 



Not only is the angler's sport, like any other, 

 greatly enhanced by the employment of implements 

 of his own creation, but the very making of a rod is 

 an idyl in craftsmanship, furnishing a recreation 

 salutary and delightful in itself during the wintry 



