Trouting. 



(not that there is any at present ; but in the exigencies of rhyme 

 the introduction of an irrelevant element or two is allowable) 



dp, up, witli your meerschaum, and light your fuzue, , 



I'm afloat, I'm afloat, and Piscator is free. 



At Weybridge and Walton we are not deterred. 



For to Woking our engine skims on like a bird ; 



Past Parnboro', Winchfield, and Basingstokee, 



Till at Andover Junction the Eover is free. 



Till at Andover Junction the Eover is free. 



And the gaping portals of the White Hart are open to receive us 

 with host Reeks beaming on the doorstep, and the feminines of the 

 establishment smiling a welcome on us cherubically ; we proceed to 

 make oujselves very much at home. 



It's all very well going out a- visiting when you go fishing, as I 

 have often. It is cheaper, I admit ; but, after all, as someone says, your 

 warmest welcome is always at an inn, and innkeepers as a rule do their 

 very level best to make one comfortable, and they very often succeed, 

 and you don't have to thank anyone for it. You are jolly independent ; 

 and if you like to put up your feet before the fire and go to sleep after 

 a long day, you can do so without feeling that you have injured anyone. 

 As for dressing for dinner, so you can in slippers and shirt sleeves if 

 the fancy so takes you; and your hostess will not look aggrieved or 

 horrified — and if she does, what is the odds ? — and as soon as you have 

 eaten to repletion you can put on your pipe without having to wend 

 along through dreary passages and green baize doors to a doleful den, far 

 removed from civilisation, and called the smoking room, because it is the 

 coldr^st, most cheerless, and most inconvenient room in the house, hours 

 after you have been dying for a weed. No ; this kind of thing doesn't go 

 well with fishing. I like to take my fishing neat, and, so that the wines are 

 not bottled bile and the spirits are not diuretic, give me my snug hotel. 



MY SNUG HOTEL. 

 Oh, if you ask me whereabouts 



My soul delights to dwell, 

 When I am on my fishing bouts — 



'Tis at my snug hotel. 



