80 THE SALMON FISHER. 



barbel than a salmon ; then another short run ; then 

 round head to stream again ; till, getting tired of 

 the rather sluggish business, you put on a long, 

 strong pull, and your man, knee-deep in water, just 

 manages to clip the fish as he wallops past, good for 

 another ten minutes' boring, perhaps " and mean- 

 while, we may infer, showing great breadth of tail, 

 but no mettle. Fishes like these do not seem to 

 wake up to the crisis until the final prick of the gaff 

 strikes into their very nerve-cores. Of course the 

 experienced angler knows just what to do at each 

 step, when to give and take, and when to check, fol- 

 low, or persuade. 



To the self-constituted preceptor such opportunity 

 is golden. Under the circumstances he is fully com- 

 petent to coach. It is like directing a pupil at the 

 riding school to pull this rein to go to the right and 

 that to go to the left. If the preceptor be a " con- 

 templative angler/' he will have abundant time to 

 formulate tactics never dreamed of by practitioners 

 of the old school, and thus win plaudits for his su- 

 perior genius from admiring parvenus who are in- 

 clined to fatuitously follow the flash of a brilliant 



