30 THE TROUT ARE RISING 



originally at three shillings and sixpence. This 

 book, I was told, could not be bought in 

 September, 1919, under thirty-six shillings. Since 

 then, happily, a new edition at four shillings and 

 sixpence, has been printed. 



Another proof of the demand for fishing was 

 given to me when I began to inquire about accom- 

 modation at hotels commanding fishing rights. 

 All over England, Wales and Scotland it was the 

 same. Throughout the fishing season of 1919 

 practically all these hotels were full. Never before 

 had the fishing inns been so well patronized. At 

 a hotel on the Cornish border a hundred applica- 

 tions were received at Eastertide from anglers 

 who could not be accommodated, although the 

 landlord made a practice of engaging additional 

 sleeping quarters outside. The only chance of 

 getting quarters at fishing hotels was to write two 

 or three months in advance. Early in the summer 

 I was lunching at a famous restaurant in the 

 Strand, when a stranger sitting next me suddenly 

 but courteously asked if I could recommend him 

 to a comfortable, old-fashioned English inn, with 

 a river by it, where he could rest a few days. 

 The question was unexpected, but it was easy 

 and pleasant to tell him of such a place, in 

 Shropshire, a charming, easy inn, where the food 

 is good wholesome English fare, where the silver 

 shines, where the linen has lain in lavender, where 

 the sober-flowing Severn is alongside, and you 

 can sit out on the lawn, or roam abroad in 

 flowery meadows, with the Wrekin, one of the 



