36 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



journey ; and as you like your entertainment, you may there 

 repose yourself a day or two, or as many more as your occa- 

 sions will permit, to recompense the trouble of so much a longer 

 journey. 



ViAT. Sir, you surprise me with so friendly an invitation upon 

 so short acquaintance ; but how advantageous so ever it 

 would be to me, and that my haste, perhaps, is not so great, but 

 it might dispense with such a divertisement as I promise myself 

 in your company ; yet I cannot in modesty accept your offer, 

 and must therefore beg your pardon : I could otherwise, I con- 

 fess, be glad to wait upon you, if upon no other account but to 

 talk of Mr. Izaak Walton, and to receive those instructions you 

 say you are able to give me for the deceiving a trout ; in which art 

 I wiil not deny but I have an ambition to be one of the greatest 

 deceivers ; though I cannot forbear freely to tell you, that I think 

 it hard to say much more than has been read to me upon that 

 subject. 



Pisc. Well, Sir, I grant that too ; but you must know that the 

 variety of rivers require different ways of angling : however, 

 you shall have the best rules I am able to give, and I will tell 

 you nothing I have not made myself as certain of, as any man 

 can be in thirty years' experience, for so long I have been a 

 dabbler in that art ; and that, if you please to stay a few days, 

 you shall in a very great measure see made good to you : but of 

 that hereafter. And now. Sir, if I am not mistaken, 1 have half 

 overcome you ; and that I may wholly conquer that modesty of 

 yours, I will take upon me to be so familiar as to say, you must 

 accept my invitation ; which, that you may the more easily be 

 persuaded to do, I will tell you that my hoMse stands upon the 

 margin of one of the finest rivers for trouts and grayling in Eng- 

 land ; that I have lately built a little fishing-house upon it, dedi- 

 cated to anglers, over the door of whicli you will see the two 



* , • ,r first letters of my father Walton's name and mine, 

 Title-Page, twisted in cypher :* that you shall lie m the same 



* See the notice of Cotton and his writings for an account of this fish- 

 ing-house. — Am. Ed. 



