DAYS IN DOVE DALE 13 



So now I have reached " The Izaak." 

 Luncheon waiting me for hours. I could 

 not touch it. My feet as wet and sloppy 

 as water could make them, my felt hat 

 spoilt, myself shivering with cold, and with 

 a feeling of collapse and congestion which 

 entirely prevents my eating or doing any- 

 thing but write these incoherent lines to 

 you. 



It is all very well for poets to talk about 

 " taking one's ease at one's inn " ; but it is 

 not so easy a thing to feel comfortable even 

 there, when the rain is pouring and everything 

 is so depressing, from the draggled hens and 

 geese outside to the grumbling of our better 

 halves inside for bringing them to such a place 

 and calling it a holiday ! 



I have just received a letter from my friend 

 H. M. Stanley, from which, as it bears on 

 angling, I venture to quote : 



" No, I never went a fly-fishing ; it is not in my 

 line ! I should certainly feel my time was being 

 squandered." (Fly-fishing time squandered ! 

 what say ye to that, Piscators?) . . . " By the 

 way, why don't you try the Congo country? 

 There you may fish for crocodiles, or if you 



