THE MICROBE 



other side they were sportsmen almost to a man, but 

 East Anglians to the core, which in those days, when 

 all but dukes and the like found their sport at home, 

 meant that not one of them probably had ever even 

 seen a trout. As for me the Kennet to be sure washed 

 the far end of our precincts for about two hundred 

 yards. The Kennet, however, was not a prattling 

 brook beside which an urchin would disport himself 

 and make acquaintance with troutlings, but a rather 

 deep and slow river where big trout lay hidden from 

 all but the expert eye, and for most of the summer 

 were buried beneath a coat of flowering weeds upon 

 which the moorhens and dabchicks ran about as on 

 a meadow. No rod of any kind was ever seen waving 

 there, nor was there anything about it to attract an 

 infant or indeed any one but a fairly skilful fisherman, 

 had there been any such, to its rather awkward banks. 

 So I have always held it to be a curious psychological 

 mystery that I, a small boy, absorbed preternaturally 

 for my years in bats and balls of all kinds, who had 

 never consciously heard the word trout uttered, 

 should have been fascinated by a ridiculous cheap 

 print which hung over the fireplace in a certain gar- 

 dener's lodge. It was an absurd thing. I can recall 

 it most vividly, though I could not have set my infant 

 eyes upon it half a dozen times. It represented two 

 slim gentlemen in tall hats, blue cut-away coats and 

 tight pantaloons standing on a grassy bank, with a 

 long wavy rod resting upon the shoulder of each. On 

 the grass was a creel, and beside it two fish adorned 

 with lurid red spots. In the foreground was a dash 

 of sky-blue water and a bed of reeds bending in the 



3 



