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Except for the assurances of that learned professor, I could 

 have sworn that the "Ghost" was "smutting." That is 

 sucking' in microscopic black flies, no bigger than the head 

 of a pin. Whatever pleasure or profit trout derive fi'oni 

 this " smutting " is one of the angling problems which 

 no man as yet has been able to solve. I put a lovely Alder 

 about a foot in front of the "Ghost's " no^e, and ])e examined 

 the fly critically, opened his mouth longiiigly. and then, 

 with a sweep of his tail, sheered off Blind was he, my 

 learned professor? Not much ! Whatever may have caused 

 his skin to 1)lanch — the ti'out's, not the professor's — it M-aa 

 not lack of eyesight. This was a rude shock to my belief in 

 that eminent German savant, and I thought the matter 

 out, over a pipe, with one eye on the " Ghost." Then I 

 laid siege to liini ao-ain and three different flies were 

 presented at intervals for his inspection and rejected. So 

 I gave up the " Ghost'' for a time and plied my craft 

 successfullv amono'st his more confidin"- friends and rela- 

 tions. But the persons who regulate the waters at mills 

 appear to take a satanic delight in making things unplea- 

 sant for Saturday anglers. All the accumulated garbage 

 of the past week is sent down for his delectation ; the water 

 is shut off, reducing the stream to a mere trickle, and 

 sending the trout scuttling' to the pools. Then the hatches 

 are lifted, and down conies another avalanche of weeds 

 and rubbish. It is a wholesome chastening of the Job- 

 like patience of an angler, is a Saturday afternoon on the 

 Darenth. But when, at length, the evil genii of the river 

 had worked their wicked will, to their full content, and 

 had gone home to tea, I returned to my post, beneath the 

 willow, and again interviewed the " Ghost." He wscs still 

 hard at it, upon those " smuts " and I offered him a micro- 

 scopic midge, tied on a piece of gut as fine as a human 

 hair. The "Ghost" sailed up to it, sucked in the tempt- 

 ing morsel — without the slightest hesitation — and then we 

 fought it out in that pool ! He had different ideas to mine, 

 as to how that fight should be conducted. His view was 

 that by getting down out of the pool, into the shallow 

 below, the friendly weeds, and a couple of stranded eel 



