EARLY MEMORIES 39 



and if more bait was urgently needed before the 

 turn of the tide, off sped one of the company to 

 the fishmonger's in Robertson Street, without 

 wasting the precious moments in replacing shoes 

 and stockings that had been removed that he 

 might fish far from the dry- footed crowd. Hastings 

 Pier knew me and my tackle at intervals down to 

 the year 1889, since which time I have not passed 

 its turnstiles at any rate in angling mood. One 

 afternoon that August, when the discoloured 

 waves were still rolling in after a three days' gale 

 from the south-west, I baited a throw-out line 

 with half a bloater and flung it out in the surf. 

 Within five minutes it stiffened out, as if it had 

 got foul of a torpedo, and I soon had a lively 

 conger of six or seven pounds slipping about on 

 the gratings. So grisly a prey would not evoke 

 raptures to-day, but it is when we are grown more 

 fastidious in our sport that we recall with regret 

 the unsophisticated times when that delighted 

 which might now disgust. Anyhow, I killed the 

 conger before an admiring crowd and stalked off 

 the pier as proud as if I had found an okapi. 

 (This is a shocking anachronism, for which Sir 

 Harry Johnston will hardly forgive me, but it 

 conveys some idea of my pride.) Nor was the 

 congei done with, for a slice of it figured that 

 night in a very excellent brown stew with sweet 

 herbs, which my landlord, sometime cook in a 



