150 A HELPING ACTION 



others may not have been so lucky, and you can help 

 them, and, as the revered father of Huck Finn said, 

 " a good action ain't never forgot." I remember 

 meeting a man wandering beside a trout stream in 

 Devonshire who told me he had knocked off fishing 

 for the day, having broken his top joint. Luckily, I 

 had my repair-case with me, and, to his delight, in 

 about fifteen minutes' time his rod was spliced, and 

 he was fishing again, and, as he told me afterwards, 

 my repairs lasted him the whole season. His gratitude 

 resulted in friendship, of which I was only deprived 

 when he, poor fellow, met with the fate of many 

 other gallant men during the late Boer War. 



The beauty of this method of splicing or fishing a 

 rod is that if only a little cement is used, it dries while 

 the splice is being made, and the rod is then usable. 



