242 AN OPEN CREEL 



of them with pride during the trout season. It was a 

 real comfort to know that, though the fly-boxes were 

 a miracle of disorder and confusion, the pike tackle 

 was thoroughly well arranged, and ready for use at any 

 moment. The indiarubber fish, it is true, has always 

 been some little anxiety. It began by having a card- 

 board box of its own, but that got disintegrated very 

 soon, since when the fish has had no home, and has 

 been lying about in the tackle-drawer loose, except 

 when it has come out attached to my sleeve, which has 

 only been now and then. 



Having arranged everything, I procured (I) a new 

 long cardboard box to hold the few things I should 

 want to take with me just enough for three days. 

 Into it I put the fish, to get it out of the way. It was 

 very unwilling to leave the tablecloth. Then I opened 

 (A). The first object that met my view was a large 

 spoon, with a tassel made of red and brown wool. 

 At once I remembered. That tassel was the first step 

 in an experiment the trial of a colour sequence on 

 pike. There were to have been blue tassels, yellow 

 tassels, rainbow tassels, and other ingenious devices 

 eked out with enamel and sealing-wax. The only 

 drawback was that the spoon utterly refused to spin 

 with the wool on its triangle, and so it was put away 

 into the wrong box. I pulled it out, and, oh, horror ! 

 all the other things in the box followed it lovingly. 

 " Things," do I say? The spinning flights, of which 

 I had often fondly thought no longer deserved such 

 consideration as entities, they were just a conglomera- 

 tion of wire, swivel, gimp, and triangle, made up as 

 nearly into a ball as such material could be. Still, in 



