IN DIVERS WEATHERS. 33 



snap-hooks, lead, and float were retrieved, 

 needless to remark, without the pike, for the 

 loss of which, however, I comfort myself in 

 the belief that it was not the twenty -pounder. 

 Before the end of the day five more fish 

 enjoyed (temporarily) the seclusion of the well, 

 but it was not there. 



Perhaps, one of these days, the phantom 1 

 will materialise, and in the bag will rest, not a 

 morning fancy, but an evening reality. Who 

 knows . 



ii. "A Top-Hole Day." 



The heat was suffocating, annihilating. 

 During the short railway journey the un- 

 fortunate dace in the can had borne alarming 

 testimony to the fact by persistently floating 

 wrong side up, 'despite my desperate and 

 perspiring endeavours to keep the water 

 aerated. And yet, according to the calendar, 

 we stood within the threshold of October? a 

 time of year when the discomforts of the dog- 

 days should have been a thing of evil memory, 



