A MORNING'S FISHING. 21 



table in London. This, I can assert from personal 

 knowledge, is a very unpleasing discovery to make. 

 Also to find yourself at the waterside with tobacco 

 and without matches is a disaster of the first 

 magnitude. Therefore, let the novice make a 

 practice of overhauling his luggage before he starts. 

 The journey needs no comment, except that it is 

 a blissful thing to see London gradually giving way 

 to green fields, and to step out onto the platform 

 of the wayside station, with its restful country 

 activities, and into the sweet air of a summer 

 morning. Let not delight in his freedom, however, 

 cause the novice to leave his rod or basket or 

 mackintosh in the rack of his railway carriage, lest 

 his joy be turned to mourning. Here also 1 speak 

 out of a full heart ; there is a blankness about the 

 world when one stands on a country platform, a 

 silly basket in hand, watching the distant train 

 which is carrying one's rod away to alien climes. 

 The novice, however, makes no such fool of himself, 

 but bears his goods proudly, and so arrives at the 

 mill where he is to fish. Here he shows the miller 

 his card of permission, is assured by that honest 

 man that Mr. Jones had rare sport with the chub 

 last Friday, makes no comment on this circumstance, 

 and hurries off to the mill-pool, where I advise him 

 to begin his fishing career. The pool is an oval 



