DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 227 



portion was given to the mare which probably 

 understood it best. He seemed quite anxious that 

 Kitty should acknowledge that with her, too, he had 

 kept his promise. 



The dinner-bell had rung when we arrived and 

 we were able to slip upstairs without waste of time 

 to square ourselves. Short as was the interval of 

 our absence we found on descending that the fish 

 had all been laid in line on the lobby floor, and 

 there stood the landlord seeing that each of them 

 received a touch of a wet cloth that they might look 

 their best. 



We were the last to go in to dinner and the last 

 to come out and, on coming to the lobby, found the 

 company gathered round our host who, while point- 

 ing to the most notable of the fish, was telling them : 

 "There is no place in Ireland like Keem Bay and 

 Moyteoge Head for pollack, unless it is our bay 

 here." 



In the drawing-room, or, perhaps, I should rather 

 say, the assembling-room, our host was at his best 

 and, if the days had been all evenings, he would 

 have had no trouble in entertaining guests. There 

 appeared to be no subject on which he could not 

 have talked the longest sitting through, and his tales 

 of dare-devil nights in caves with seals were most 

 thrilling, especially to the ladies. Given rain each 

 day or night Mr Sheridan would prove an ideal host 

 to fly-fishers but when nights and days have followed 

 each other for a lengthened period without a drop of 

 it even nights with seals tail off a bit. So I think 

 our host was glad of a cue, and that evening the 

 subject was changed first to pollack and then to a 

 monster conger which so filled a boat that the fisher- 



