276 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART II. 



day enough to perform our journey, and, as you like your 

 entertainment, you may there repose yourself a day or 

 two, or as many more as your occasions will permit, to 

 recompense the trouble of so much a longer journey. 



Viat. Sir, you surprise me with so friendly an invita- 

 tion upon so short acquaintance ; but how advantageous 

 soever it would be to me, and that my haste, perhaps, is 

 not so great but it might dispense with such a divertise- 

 ment as I promise myself in your company, yet I cannot, 

 in modesty, accept your offer, and must therefore beg 

 your pardon : I could otherwise, I confess, be glad to 

 wait upon you, if upon no other account but to talk of 

 Mr. I. Walton, and to receive those instructions you say 

 you are able to give me foi the deceiving a Trout ; in 

 which art I will not deny but that I have an ambition to 

 be one of the greatest deceivers : though I cannot forbear 

 freely to tell you, that I think it hard to say much more 

 than has been read to me upon that subject. 



Pise. Well, Sir, I grant that, too ; but you must know 

 that the variety of rivers require different ways of angling: 

 however, you shall have the best rules I am able to give, 

 and I will tell you nothing I have not made myself as 

 certain of, as any man can be in thirty years experience ; 

 (for so long I have been a dabbler in that art ;) and that, 

 if you please to stay a few days, you shall, in a very great 

 measure, nee made good to you. But of that hereafter ; 

 and now, Sir, if I am not mistaken, I have half overcome 

 you : and that I may wholly conquer that modesty of 

 your's, I will take upon me to be so familiar as to say, 

 you must accept my invitation, which, that you may the 

 more easily be persuaded to do, I will tell you that my 

 house stands upon the margin of one of the finest rivers 

 for Trouts and Grayling in England ; that I have lately 

 built a little fishing-house upon it, dedicated to anglers, 



