SEVENTH EMPTYING 97 



the wheat, and are seized of an avaricious desire to possess 

 it. But the cunning digger of the hole has made it just too 

 deep for the long-necked bird to reach it. He stands on 

 the edge of the hole, ducks his nose into it, cranes his neck, 

 fails to touch it, tries again, overbalances himself and falls 

 neck and crop into it. Exit from this position is impossible, 

 and the downy digger comes along next day, lifts the bird 

 out, and forthwith corkscrews his neck for him. " But," 

 said the fishermen, concluding, "we can only catch the 

 male birds this way ; the females are much too cunning, 

 though we found out a way to snare them." " And how," 

 asked a lady present, " do you manage it ?" " Well," said 

 he, " we put a bit of looking-glass at the bottom of the hole." 



There is a homely, honest comfort about an angler's inn 

 known only to the craft. Times have changed greatly since 

 Shenstone " Travelled life's dull round," but in the matter 

 of angling inns, and particularly in the north, the sentiment 

 embodied in the poet's lines is appreciable to a great extent. 

 I think I know them all from Ballyshannon to Christiania, 

 in that phenomenal country where a man can eat and drink 

 like a mediaeval fighting-cock for yd., and where you may 

 even leave an umbrella out of doors all night and find it 

 where you left it next morning which goes to prove, I 

 suppose, either that the climate is very dry, or that they are 

 very poor umbrellas. But we set out to discuss angling 

 inns. It has been said (by a mother-in-law probably) that 

 the shortest way to a man's heart is down his throat ; it is a 

 libel as any man will tell you. In a case of this kind women 

 should not judge us too harshly ; we are weak mortals and 

 they rule us. Probably the remark quoted was in retalia- 

 tion for the discovery of the unquestionable fact that there 

 never yet was a man with a wife who could cook as well as 

 his mother could. 



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