170 



The well-known response of the bank fisher when asked if he 

 had had a bite " No, I only came here last Saturday " suggests 

 the practical convenience of the foregoing appliances. 



This may sound " kinder sarcastic," as Artemus Ward calls it, 

 but nothing is further from my thoughts. Indeed my heart goes 

 out to these bank-side fishers these patient sitters by the water 

 who for hours together will watch with ever abiding perseverance 

 the top of their 'quivering quill.' I plead guilty to a positive 

 affection for the little ragged urchins, who, with their sticks and 

 pin-hooks, and a soda water bottle to hold their spoils, cluster as 

 thick as bees in clover along the dusty towing-path of the Regent's 

 Canal, and I wish I could distribute amongst them the catching 

 of some of those creels, full of glorious trout, for which in the wild 

 wilderness of moor and loch I have been, alas ! so often able to 

 find no better destination than the farmer's pig-trough. Depend 

 upon it the gentle spirit of the mighty master and prototype of our 

 craft lingers lovingly amongst these waifs and strays along life's 

 footway, perhaps his truest, because least exacting, disciples ; and 

 if I had no other cause to be a votary of the angle, the million 

 sons of toil to whom in the intervals of their weary round of 



