AND HOW I HAVE CAUGHT MY FISH 273 



assisted me with many of the figures necessary 

 for this chapter. " Look here, Geen, you have 

 introduced me to more than one good thing. Will 

 you, for once, permit me to pioneer, and will you 

 promise to be as patient with me, if it is not a 

 success, as I have been with you during some 

 of your terrible frosts ? " My reply to this query 

 ended in our meeting a few days after at Euston 

 for a night journey via the West Coast route to 

 Inverness. He, mindful of his new role, visited me 

 in my berth soon after the train had started, and 

 insisted on inspecting my tackle-cases, fearing, 

 as he said, that he might find it necessary to 

 supplement what I had with some of his, so that 

 our chances of success might be equal. My box of 

 Geen-swivelled phantoms met with his approval at 

 first sight, but on closer inspection he found it 

 necessary to fetch his and make sundry exchanges, 

 by which I got representations of several fish quite 

 unknown to me, which he considered much more 

 deadly than my No. 7 parrs, with their silver 

 bellies, slate sides, and delicate green bars. My 

 chars, too, shaded from the most delicate pink to 

 the brightest red, with vermilion and black spots 

 of varying sizes dotted here and there, were, to his 

 mind, quite out of date when compared with some 

 of his new ideas, self painted, which he fairly 

 lavished on me. 



To grow old and fail to keep pace with the 

 times, in matters piscatorial, is really a small 



T 



