x Introductory. 



my find; but when I did, and found I 

 had got three hundred pages about fish 

 and rivers and ponds, I forgot my 

 bumps, I forgot everything as I listened 

 to the voice of the dear old Master. If 

 I had only studied my school-books as I 

 did Walton ! I remember some years 

 after, one hot summer day, when my old 



schoolmaster, the Rev. Mr. H , 



was perspiring with the heat and his 

 endeavour to make some lines of Xeno- 

 phon's "Anabasis" clear to a fat Irish 

 boy, that, thinking his attention would 

 be engaged for some time, I propped up 

 the lid of my desk as a screen, and was 

 soon deep in dearly beloved Walton. 

 The loud voice of the master and the 

 hesitating answers of the boy soon faded 

 away, and I was watching Piscator kill 

 that big chub with the white spot on his 

 tail, when bang went the master's cane 

 on his oak desk. I looked round my 

 sheltering desk-lid only to find, in perfect 

 silence, the whole eyes of the class on me, 

 and then, with Xenophon upraised in 



