182 AN OPEN CREEL 



date announced ; so should he catch the wind in the 

 south and plenty of fly on the river while the unsus- 

 pecting official is busy arranging a little cyclone or a 

 trifling displacement of water in America, just to keep 

 his hand in. 



But, as has been said, that Whitsuntide anglers were 

 without guile, and Fairford was the scene of a care- 

 fully-executed programme of various unpleasant kinds 

 of weather. The trout also were mostly standing on 

 their heads doubtless by previous arrangement with 

 the official and they do not take flies with their tails. 

 In the course of evolution the fish of the south appear 

 to have developed eyes in this region, but as yet a 

 second mouth is wanting to the equipment ; perhaps 

 some scientific fish-culturist will put this right. From 

 these reasons it came about that the good men and 

 true assembled fared but poorly in the matter of trout, 

 and more than one rod returned of an evening with 

 his fish still to catch, and with sundry convincing 

 reasons for it bubbling out of him. It is pleasant to 

 exchange accounts of success ; even more pleasant is it 

 to exchange the tale of failure. In the first case, the 

 other man may often have done better than one has 

 oneself, and the satisfaction of exchange is then marred 

 by a feeling of inferiority ; but in the second it is quite 

 impossible that he should have done worse, and one 

 may proudly feel that in ill-luck one yields to no man 

 thereout sucks one a certain melancholy joy. 



There is also a pleasure in mutual abuse of an absent 

 party in this instance the fish. There is a long, 

 bright, broad shallow below the island which is most 

 tempting to the eye, and here a fish or two may be 



