A Purist amongst Purists 163 



river warranted and even encouraged it — w^as, 

 in his eyes, simple sacrilege. No, nothing 

 but the driest of dry flies would he approve 

 of, or allow to be really scientific angling, 

 and the wet-fly angler on a chalk stream he 

 regarded as an abomination, an anachronism. 

 ' It may be magnificent,' he would say, in 

 somewhat acid tones, ' getting a basket of 

 heavy trout with a sunk fly, but it is not 

 fishing.' Others might do it, if so they 

 chose, on those streams, at any rate, which 

 were not absolutely sacred to the proper 

 scientific method j but, for his own part, he 

 would rather put up his rod and never cast a 

 fly again than adopt ' chuck and chance it ' 

 tactics. ' For those who like that sort of 

 thing, it's just the sort of thing they like,' 

 was another favourite saying of his in regard 

 to anglers practising the wet-fly as well as 

 dry-fly method. 



He had no patience whatever with his 

 friend All-Rounder, who for a long while 

 frequented the same good old hostelry in the 

 north country, and who himself preferred 



