Roaehing. lOl 



and I proceed to give you some idea of it. Jorkins is coining to day to 

 have a turn with me. It has been raining lately, and the water is in 

 prime order as regards colour ; and if the mills don't play any tricks with it, 

 as they are apt to do, we should have what the Yankees call " a good time." 



Yesterday Ptook eight or ten good fish, and I could almost swear I 

 lost a bream ; and if there are bream there, they run big. I have caught 

 five or six in one afternoon, and not one of them under 41b. ; and the 

 roach run from fib. to l^^lb. — a few perhaps touching l^lb. — on a good day. 

 - 1 pitched in a flower-pot full of worms when I finished last night ; so, if 

 there be a bream or two about the swim, they will haply come on. 

 Jorkins is coming, and Jork is a companion after my own heart at this 

 work. He can put up with a bad day if it comes without grumbling, 

 but he dearly likes a good one. As the clock strikes ten I shall see a 

 fair little man looming up the drive, with an enormous cigar in his mouth. 

 Why do little men always smoke such big cigars ? Jorks looked as if it 

 wanted a sling from the brim of his hat to secure it — a knowing little billycock 

 surmounts his Norfolk jacket, and he is of course laden with baskets and 

 rods de rigueur. He will come in beaming, and quite ready to begin ; so, as 

 I have the ground bait to make, I have no time to lose. " Cook, did you 

 soak that bread, and boil the rice ? " Cook, " Have a-soaked the bread, and 

 have a-b'iled the rice ! " Delightfvil old party; she has taken some trouble 

 with it too, and it is done to a turn. I myself have the pearl barley on, and 

 under my own eye, simmering away on the hob — for that is an operation 

 that is too nice even for cooks. And now, having had all the things 

 conveyed to my den, and having set the gardener to pick up about 

 two dozen and a half of stones somewhat larger than big gooseberries, 

 I retire for the momentous work. 



Now I dare say you think any fool can make ground bait, and so he 

 can ; but good ground bait — ground bait, as Captain Cuttle said of his 

 watch, "as '11 do you credit" — requires practice and care. Of course any 

 fool can squeeze up a smash of clay and bran, &c., with great lumps of 

 bread in it, any one of which would fill a roach's whame for the day and 

 put him off the feed; but judiciously to mix ground bait is not so easy. 

 First I get all the stale crusts (I don't like cutting up loaves somehow). 



