CHAPTER VI. 



SOME MARCH JOTTINGS. 



March 17^, 1894. 



A promising schoolboy Cleopatra " Give me mine angle " 

 Enthusiastic angler who takes note of nothing but his float 

 Wood ants A globular sack of spiders Frogs Shakespeare's 

 flowers A visit to Ann Hathaway's cottage A posy of spring 

 flowers from her garden Amusing questions Signs of foul 

 weather. 



TASSING through Lincoln's-inn-fields this 

 evening, I heard one schoolboy shout to 

 another across the road, "I say, Jack, 

 have you written your essay yet ? " " No ; 

 have you ? " " Well, I've done two or three pages of 

 rot ; something like what the old muff talked about 

 this morning, so I hope it will pass." 



The frank but disrespectful remarks of this pro- 

 mising boy served to remind me that the editor of 

 " The Fishing Gazette" had insisted on my supplying 

 him with bricks, but leaving me to furnish straw. 



It is difficult to steer clear of the tedium which the 

 ingenuous youth called rot when one is asked to write 



