GAFFING. 97 



'Confound you,' said I, furious with conflicting emotions, 

 'you've made me lose him a twenty-pounder if he was an 

 ounce ! ' . . . 



* Well, what is to be done, sir ? ' was the next remark. 



By this time my wrath had cooled down a little and I in- 

 stinctively felt in my waistcoat pocket. It was empty. 



* Unluckily, Edwards,' I said, ' I have left my purse behind.' 

 ' Oh ! never mind, sir,' was the reply, ' everyone knows your 

 credit's good at the Bell! ' 



Peccavi \ f How sad and mad and bad it was ' ! . . . I should 

 like to quote if only to ' keep myself in countenance ' the 

 confessions of Mr. Thomas Westwood (poet, and author of 

 'Bibliotheca Piscatoria '), which he makes in one of his charming 

 angling idyls, the ' Lay of the Lea.' Not that I would 



Drag his frailties from their dread abode, 



but merely that, as he is an old friend of mine, I should like to 

 do my best to give his confessions the publicity that I know he 

 would desire for them ! 



Bobbing 'neath the bushes, 



Crouched among the rushes, 

 On the rights of Crown and State I'm, alas ! encroaching. 



What of that ? I know 



My creel will soon o'erflow, 

 If a certain Cerberus do not spoil my poaching. 



The ' certain Cerberus ' being, in fact, the Government 

 water bailiff employed to look after the well-known Enfield 

 Powder Mills. Still I must say Mr. Westwood's crime was of a 

 far less heinous complexion than mine. He only fished, fairly, 

 where well 'where he didn't ought to' whilst I . . but let 

 me drop the veil over these sad examples of human depravity, 

 and come back to gaffing. 



The ' queerest fish ' that it ever happened to me to gaff, I 

 was going to say, but I remember that on this occasion it 

 chanced to be to net was a wild duck. Spinning one day 



I. H 



