IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 149 



faces have never become. Wonder that a man should 

 be so foolish as to labour after the returnable has been 

 the usual result. A friend of mine, however, once had 

 a different experience. He caught a nice trout of about 

 one and a half pounds, and was about to tap it on the 

 head and consign it to his creel, when he heard a 

 grieved voice above : " What do you want to kill an 

 undersized fish like that for ? Put it back ! Shame !" 

 A one-and-a-half-pound trout is amply sizeable, how- 

 ever, and the fish was killed despite the remonstrances, 

 whereupon the critic exchanged reproof for abuse, 

 which continued until the angler was out of earshot. 



Probably criticism of this kind would be heard more 

 often if trout of one and a half pounds were more often 

 caught, for in his relations with the watching public 

 the angler is situated much as the man in ^Esop's fable 

 who wanted to please all and failed to conciliate any. 

 It is a mistake to be too compliant with unsolicited 

 advice. Not long ago I was fishing for perch in a 

 Thames eddy, and fairly content with a half-pounder 

 or so that bit at longish intervals. It was at the begin- 

 ning of one of these intervals when a stranger wandered 

 up the towpath, passed the time of day, and settled 

 down to help me watch the float. A fourth part of the 

 interval passed, and he hazarded the remark that I did 

 not seem to be catching much, to which I weakly 

 assented. The second quarter went by, and he opined 

 that I was in the wrong place. The third quarter he 

 occupied with a moving description of sport that had 

 been enjoyed below a certain bush higher up in 

 February. Then he hinted that I should do well to 

 transport myself thither. He did more than hint ; he 



