38 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



purpose was to get clear of the crowd, or to reach 

 deeper water, we never asked, but the plan suc- 

 ceeded, and day after day he earned our unappre- 

 ciated adoration by stalking off the pier with several 

 good fish. I always respected not so much his 

 success, which was due solely to the deadly bait 

 which he alone used at the time, as his indifference 

 to the chaff launched at his bare legs by envious 

 rivals, or by such festive trippers as herded on the 

 upper deck. Had these latter indeed been con- 

 tent with launching chaff only, all might have 

 been well. But the August excursionist of the 

 roughest type always was a muddy knave, and not 

 all the solicitude of a County Council, which places 

 Charles Lamb on the Index Expurgatorius of 

 school prizes, can do much to mend him. 



Fifteen years later I came across another case 

 of profitable contempt of the carping crowd, this 

 time at Littlehampton, where a crafty angler 

 waded, without regard to the jeering of the Philis- 

 tine, out into the surf and there, casting with 

 some bait, of which he contrived to keep the secret, 

 more than once caught a creel load of bass and other 

 fish. In sea-fishing at any rate, though a respect 

 for local methods is not always out of place, he 

 often succeeds who throws tradition to the winds. 



Those were happy mudlarking days at Hastings 

 twenty years ago. Of clothing we wore no more 

 than decency prescribed ; if anything, rather less ; 



