72 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



your cups, a little romantic even in your sober 

 interludes, but your genial treatment of the stran- 

 ger within your gates has left a private debt that 

 not all your Fatherland's public hostility towards 

 her rival in the Weltpolitik can cancel. For all 

 that your " Future lies on the Water/' you were 

 extremely bad fishermen, but as comrades I doubt 

 if the world ever held your betters. Prosit Blume ! 

 Like watering-places all the world over, War- 

 nemiinde threw off its hibernating lethargy with 

 amazing despatch at the coming of the fashion. 

 Hotels and shops were re-opened, boats refur- 

 bished, accommodation went to a premium where 

 a fortnight earlier had been a city of the dead. 

 Carnival, cotillon, picnic, concert followed in an 

 unbroken whirl of gaiety. Every day the rank 

 and beauty met at the Anstal or in the hotel 

 grounds. All the summer we fished on the bank, 

 just before my door, and it would be no exaggera- 

 tion to quote the average bag to my own rod at 

 15 Ibs. a day. It was the success merely of almost 

 invisible tackle against lines that would have 

 hanged a horse-thief. The bait was a small lob- 

 worm dug from our garden and used with no 

 thought of scouring. Often not half a minute 

 elapsed from the first baiting of the hook to the 

 moment when the red float rushed away under 

 water and a pound perch or a bream of twice the 

 weight bent the rod to a great curve, for, with so 



