HALFORD AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 155 



and used with a twinkle of his eye to ask me whether 

 my friend the Badger was quite well. 



And what a delightful fishing companion the Badger 

 was ! Perhaps for the first two years at Houghton the 

 pleasure was just a little tempered with one insignificant 

 drawback. I had not then been long a dry-fly prac- 

 titioner, and was terribly ashamed for H. to watch me 

 fishing. 'Tis thirty years back, yet I acutely remem- 

 ber my nervousness on that point. Having got his 

 brace or so of fish, and finished his studies of water, rise 

 of fly, weeds and weather, and neatly (and oh ! so 

 orderly and accurately !) made his entries in his little 

 notebook, he loved to play gillie to his friend for hours 

 together, criticise his style of fishing, and give advice ; 

 naturally, after a time, if you are nervous, you are 

 certain of one thing only : that you are the king of 

 asses, and had better imitate the immortal colonel who 

 hurled his book of salmon flies into the pool shouting 

 " Here, take the bally lot." The droll thing was that 

 Halford never dreamed that his chum was put out by 

 his good intentions, or that the victim's feeble smiles 

 were but a mask for nerve-flutters. 



One hot day I was over-tired and nakedly accom- 

 plished everything that was wrong ; the backward 

 cast caught buttercups and daisies, the forward throw 

 fouled the sedges, the underhand cut landed line and 

 cast in a heap on the water, the fish was put down, the 

 whole shallow scared. Halford stood behind amiably 

 commenting upon the bungling operations, and then I 

 uprose from a painful knee and delivered myself of re- 

 marks. Well ; yes, I let myself go, and let him " have 

 it." The amazement of Halford ; his contrition ; the 

 colour that spread over his countenance (you will re- 

 member how prettily he could blush with that com- 

 plexion of his, delicate as a woman in his last days) ; 



