296 TROUT FISHING 



heaps of what I had supposed to be about as plentiful 

 as radium. It was a glad moment. 



It was still some time, however, before the full 

 merits of Amadou were revealed to me. I used it 

 for drying flies with pleasure and profit, but never 

 thought of further use for it till some correspondent 

 wrote to The Field to suggest that it would prove 

 a remedy for a sodden line. The sinking line had 

 always been one of my chief bugbears in dry-fly 

 fishing, and I used sometimes to cumber myself with 

 a second reel, in case the first failed me after a few 

 hours of casting. But Amadou has quite removed 

 the necessity for that. It will dry a line, so that, 

 after a new application of grease, it will float almost 

 as long as it did when the day began. An admirable 

 fungus indeed. 



It is tempting to take up a tackle catalogue and 

 work slowly through its contents, dwelling on the 

 virtues of fly-boxes with transparent lids, on reels 

 with melodious voices, on handy folding-nets, on 

 agate rings, and other excellent devices for increasing 

 the happiness of the angler. But there would 

 really be no end to it, and this book is a thing which, 

 however imperfect in other respects, must, at any 

 rate, be perfect in one — its reader must be able to 

 say at a given point, " Well, that really is all." 



This is so important that I will withhold that 

 satisfaction from him no longer. 



