44 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



perpetually races away from them, as if anxious to escape 

 the everlasting check put upon its motions ! These gentle- 

 men are Smith, Jones, and Robinson, and it is both probable 

 and possible that they will be punted to the snug waterside 

 hostelry at night with no more fish than they could hide in 

 a quart pot. They are men in flourishing lines of business 

 when at home, but to-day, happy as the kings of proverb, 

 they sit there under the broiling sun, hoping a good deal, 

 dreaming a little, eating, drinking, and smoking somewhat, 

 and caring for nobody in the wide universe. Money may 

 be tight in the City, markets bad, things on the Exchange 

 gloomy ; but for the time a lusty barbel or a wriggling roach 

 would concern them more than all your dividends, discounts, 

 or exchanges. 



And there is no part of the Thames certainly no por- 

 tion of its fishable parts where there is not shorewards 

 something worth looking upon. No doubt your superfine 

 critic would consider punt-fishing at Richmond, or anywhere 

 between Richmond and Teddington, as Cockneyism of the 

 most pronounced type ; but if only for the sake of the 

 manifold playings of light and shade upon the trees, the 

 glints of golden sunlight falling each hour differently as the 

 eventide draws on upon the river, and the ever-changing, 

 ever-interesting traffic of the tideway which you get on a 

 summer afternoon, stationed within sight of beautiful 

 Richmond Hill, or further up by the pretty lawns and villas 

 of Twickenham, you would do well not to think too lightly 

 of a few hours in a Thames punt, even so close to the Rialto 

 as are those near-at-hand " pitches." 



It does your heart good to ramble along the banks and 

 see how much happiness the bounteous river gives to old 



