146 THE TROUT ARE RISING 



to make a point of remembering and paying at 

 the bar on the way to the smoking room. But it 

 is possible to forget, not wilfully, but literally. 

 The cynic, who " knows human nature," may say 

 it was just a dodge to get customers into the bar, 

 to spend more money. But it wasn't. There 

 was no sort of incitement, subtle or otherwise, to 

 such indulgence. The landlord was a prosperous 

 man, busy, and with a large trust in his fellows. 

 Told one day that guests must surely sometimes 

 forget to square up with the slate (not that one 

 existed), and thus not pay for these casual items 

 of refreshment at meals, all he said was : " Well, 

 in that case it does them more harm than me." 

 One can imagine what the manager of a London 

 cash-down stores would say ! Anyhow, there it 

 was. It was very nice, too, to get a Christmas 

 card from that good landlord, though well over 

 half a year since the guest's departure time 

 enough, one would have thought, for passing 

 strangers to have been long forgotten. 



Landlords and landladies have much scope 

 for observing human nature. Their guests, 

 with their comings and goings, fads and foibles, 

 must be to them a constant series of studies in 

 personality. One shrewd landlady in the north- 

 west of England said she could sum up the guests 

 at her hotel by the very way they entered. She 

 was still not pleased with those patrons who, when 

 the war was on, would come in and immediately 

 ask for the porter, "at a time when," as she re- 

 called, " every fit man was away at the war, and 



