The Angler's Story 43 



just for the fun of it. It is too bad that B 



does not have to tie flies for a living, as anglers 

 have lost a great artist. He is the impression- 

 ist, the Monet of the school, as note his great 

 creation, the Prodigioso fly, which hangs in the 

 Tuna Club, formed of bear's hair, moa crest, 

 and the hackle of a roc, made for me for taking 



an eight-pound rainbow. While B ties flies 



and smokes, D reads from an old book, John 



Dennys' Secrets of Angling: "Of Angling, and 

 the Art thereof I sing." 



You Nymphs that in the Springs and Waters sweet, 

 Your dwelling have, of every Hill and Dale, 

 To sport and play, and heare the Nightingale; 

 And in the Rivers fresh doe wash your feet, 

 While Prognes sister tels her wofull tale: 

 Such ayde and power unto my verses lend 

 As may suffice this little worke to end. 



The conversation then fell upon the habits of 

 anglers and of the charming men, and women, 

 too, we had met, and F sang of Mynheer Van- 

 dun ck, as a warning to S , who was in the 



back room brewing a punch whose pallid breath 

 reeked through the seams of the comfortable 

 shanty, preaching sermons of the delights of 

 iniquity, pipes, hot jorums on roaring nights, 

 punch on fairly cold nights (like this), and fish 

 stories that were neither hard nor fast, so far 



