EARLY DAYS 3 



There your companion swiftly transfers him to a 

 sack, that is if you are the master-mind. If not, if 

 there is no great difference in ruling capacity 

 between you, your companion will probably be in 

 the mud, too. And two eels out of the three will 

 escape over the lower dam. There is a third alter- 

 native which places you on the bank, but it is less 

 dignified, and I will not dwell on it, even though it 

 means an eel or so more in the narrative. 



Besides, there will be quite enough eels in the 

 narrative ere I have finished. Once in it, they are 

 as bad to get out as they are in a nearly -baled pool. 

 There was great plenty of eels in that part of 

 Gloucestershire, and many a time did I set out to 

 capture them from one of the insignificant ditches 

 into which they made their way. I used to wonder 

 how they came there, for, take it all in all, it was a 

 fishless part of the world. The brook I have men- 

 tioned, and two or three ponds I cannot remember 

 any other waters close at hand which held anything. 

 But in all the ditches, however small, which contained 

 water there were small eels, whose presence I 

 understand well enough now. The boundary of the 

 county was not far away, and it was nothing less 

 than the Severn, the greatest elver river in the land. 

 It was tidal down there, to be sure, but doubtless 

 the elvers ran up every streamlet which joined it, 

 and so made their way as far as they could get. 



