THE CHANCE ENCOUNTER 167 



comment, I fear. But once, happily when he 

 was watching me, I made a really good cast over 

 a rising trout, just under an overhanging bough. 

 The fish rose, was hooked, and played to the net, 

 which he handled for me himself. Altogether 

 not a discreditable performance, which caused him 

 (in a weak moment !) to exclaim, " I must say 

 you did that very well ! " His words of approval 

 echo pleasantly in my ear to this day. A parson, 

 a brother of the angle, once said to me, at a little 

 riverside inn in Scotland, " It is the little things 

 in life that are so important." That Lancashire 

 vicar had keen insight into human affairs. We 

 are apt to get touchy when the wrong thing is 

 said, huffed when our sense of importance is (as 

 we think) assailed ; our nerves are likely to be 

 ruffled when somebody or other seems all out of 

 sympathy with our (of course correct) attitude. 

 Contrariwise, we cherish there is a lot of human 

 nature in man, to quote the old saying the golden 

 word, said at the right moment. I think the 

 charm, the value, of the Major's companionship 

 was that he never laughed at, but always with 

 one. The Major would describe himself as " a 

 hard case." Yet he took me across the street 

 one day on seeing a poor cripple whom he had 

 got to know. "Come along," he said, "we 

 must go and have a talk to that old man ; he 

 likes any one to have a word with him." Then 

 there was the day on which we were due to fish 

 on one of the choicest trout waters in England. 

 He received word that an old friend of his was 



