CHAPTEK XII. 



SOME REMINISCENCES OF OLD FRIENDS. 



Did ever any one see the like ! What a heap of trumpery 

 is here ; and since I find you an honest man, I will make no 

 scruples in laying my treasures before you. [Charles Cotton. 



taking down my store of ang- 

 ling implements from their win- 

 ter's repose, I found them as I 

 had left them, after a long siege 

 of service. They were as wel- 

 come as the faces of old friends ; 

 and the older the more welcome. 

 There was the identical " sil- 

 ver doctor" with which I took 

 my first salmon last year dim 

 and frayed from hard service, but more precious 

 from association than all its score of gaudy com- 

 panions. What any fly would do, under any cir- 

 cumstances, for any one, that fly did for me. 

 Whether in sunshine or cloud whether in un- 

 tried waters or where each ripple, rock and eddy 

 were as familiar as household words whether, 

 when no breeze disturbed the silvery surface of 



