4 AN ANGLER'S LINES. 



lias been unnoticed or the float has remained 

 motionless. He has been Nature's guest, has 

 seen her face to face, and is a better man in 

 mind and body. Believe me, ye scoffers, such 

 an one is to be envied; he is no fool. 



Fate has ordained that the angler whom I 

 depict, and for whom I fling my cap into the 

 ring, shall live his life amidst the stress and 

 turmoil of a crowded city. Fair weather or 

 foul, heat or cold, he must take his allotted 

 place in the world of work and labour for his 

 daily bread. Perhaps, at times, in the ray of 

 sunlight that icomes in at the office -window, 

 lie sees a vision of green water-meadows and 

 catches the far-off echo of a babbling stream; 

 and he thinks of the trout that rises in the tail 

 of the eddy just below the little wooden 

 bridge. Then the office reasserts itself; he 

 must wait till Saturday. All the cares and 

 worries of the preceding week vanish and are 

 forgotten as he journeys on that day, the oasis 

 in a desert of work, towards that little wooden 

 bridge, with the trout looming large in his 



