OF PURFLING AND PURISM 55 



"Don't you find that rather tiresome every 

 day ? " he asked. " If you would dress your line 

 properly in the winter you would never have to 

 mess about with fat and things. A pint of shellac 

 dissolved in ten ounces of beeswax and boiled for 

 three hours with an equal quantity of bear's 

 grease, ketchup, spermaceti, liquorice, and rain- 

 water, strained through butter muslin, and " 



" I am no cook," said I, " but it is kind of you 

 to give me the recipe." So it was. People always 

 mean kindly when they teach other people their 

 business. My suspicion grew. To make quite 

 sure, I asked, " Have you done anything yet ? " 

 He stiffened. " There has been no fly," he replied, 

 in the voice with which people are put in theit 

 places. Then he went away. 



It is even so. 



Purfling is a Purist. 



I am not a Purist. 



The art by which I humbly seek to earn my 

 bread induces, or should induce, the habit of 

 observation. Thus I am an observer of men, and 

 among men of fishermen, and among fishermen of 

 dry-fly fishermen. 



Purfling being gone, let us lean together on this 

 wooden bridge the rail is exactly the most 

 comfortable height and let me discourse to 



