CHAPTER XI 



THE duffer's fortnight 



It begins somewhere about June 1 — maybe a 

 little earlier, maybe a little later, according to local 

 circumstances and the nature of the season. A 

 warm spell may hasten it a little, though it does not 

 seem so certain that a cold spell will delay it much 

 beyond the date which custom has ordained for its 

 beginning. At any rate, it will probably not delay 

 the duffer, whatever it does to his fortnight, and he 

 will be anxiously expecting his opportunity on a 

 given day every year. " Duffer's fortnight " is not 

 at all a bad name for the Mayfly carnival, though it 

 needs a somewhat more elastic interpretation than 

 has usually been given to it. Presumably it was 

 first so called because of an impression that when the 

 Mayfly was on the duffer could show himself an 

 angler. The origin of the expression is lost in the 

 mist of antiquity, so it is unsafe to assert too con- 

 fidently that it was not so in those days. Perhaps 

 it was so. The veriest bungler may then have 

 been able to fill his creel, and his pockets, and carry 

 the residuum of three-pounders slung on a withy 



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