PREFACE. 



READER, fair or unfair, as the case may be, gentle or simple, 

 whichever you think you are, and you, Mr. Kindly Critic, 

 who know all the tales and everything I once heard the 

 showman Barnum say there were only forty original stories 

 to begin with ; all the rest that have made us laugh are 

 little descendants therefrom. Now the stories in this book, 

 which are about all sorts of things, from bridecakes to 

 bunions, are some of them new ; others, or something very 

 like them, may have raised a smile even on 



The face that launch'cl a thousand ships, 

 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. 



A good story is like a good woman, it ought never to 

 grow old, and, as a matter of fact, it never does. It is 

 handed down from one generation to another, crosses oceans 

 and continents, appears in the hieroglyphs of Egypt, crops 

 up again among the negroes of South Carolina, and for 

 centuries it goes on making countless thousands of people 

 laugh. It is always new when it is heard for the first time. 



The humour of angling is inexhaustible and universal. 

 " The Angler's Rest " was the sign of a French riverside 

 inn I saw not long ago, and underneath in smaller letters 

 were the words "Fish for Sale." 



The art of angling is an epitome of the game of life 

 itself : we are all anglers on a large scale. We throw out 

 our baits in the great stream day after day, to find that the 



