THE ANGLER IN IRELAND. 143 



{through another's error), and announcing his strangerhood, 

 would have been made otherwise than courteously welcome, 

 -at least to finish the day he had begun. 



Yet what an astonishing ignorance prevails respecting 

 Ireland ! " Is it safe ?" asked a broad-shouldered stockbroker 

 of me, when with enthusiastic eloquence I told him of the 

 rare sport to be had in that tight little island. 



" Is it safe to trust yourself into those savage parts ? " he 

 demanded. 



The man of Consols' was reeling in his live bait as he asked 

 me the question by the side of a very private sheet of water 

 (not many miles from the Royal Exchange) where I was 

 lounging over an evening cigar, watching his efforts to get a 

 "run." He admitted that he reserved ^"50 yearly for a 

 month's holiday, not a farthing more nor a fraction less, and 

 always spent it. He was a bachelor, and gloried in being 

 unblessed with wife or child. He had " done " the Rhine 

 because Tompkins had done it. He had accompanied 

 Smith to Paris, Jones to Germany, Buggins to Florence and 

 Rome, and on each occasion, so he protested, he had felt 

 relieved when at length the last of his ten-pound notes had 

 been changed. But Ireland ? No : he had never ventured 

 there. Was it safe ? 



By an almost superhuman effort I converted him, and 

 saw him off by the Wild Irishman, with a magnificent angling 

 outfit, resolved at last to risk his precious body amongst the 

 Irish rivers and lakes. At first I believe he never moved 

 -out without a revolver. The weapon now lies buried, like 

 his ignorance and prejudice, full fathoms five. He had been 

 an enthusiastic fisherman for twenty-two years, but swears he 

 never knew what real angling meant till then. The twenty- 



