32 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



my trousers in order that I might not be drowned 

 in the dock. I have often thought that if in a 

 drowsy moment he had relaxed his hold .... so 

 have others; but it is too late for vain regrets. 

 The smelts are recalled only as few and far between, 

 also as occasioning much unpleasantness with 

 a typical Mrs. Lirriper who did not like the job 

 of cooking such fry ; but the rod I shall never for- 

 get. Since those unsophisticated days the same 

 hands, grown stronger and more difficult to please, 

 have grasped all manner of length and weight, 

 of bamboo, greenheart, hickory, yet never again 

 so strange an implement as we used for those 

 Lowestoft atherines, a Japanese pattern, each 

 joint of which packed within the next, and the 

 whole into the butt from which it could be ex- 

 pelled telescope fashion by blowing down a hole. 

 When not actually employed in its legitimate 

 work, such a rod afforded endless variety and 

 recreation by being discharged against the ears 

 of friends and acquaintances, who received the 

 salute according to their individual temperament, 

 but when a cousin had missed the loss of one 

 eye by about an eighth of an inch, these innocent 

 pleasures were sternly interdicted. Sea-fishing 

 for sport has been taken more seriously in the 

 years that have since elapsed, but, though I have 

 since visited Lowestoft' s marine laboratory, in 

 which Mr. Garstang sifts the evidence of North 



