OF THE CRACKLING OF THORNS 117 



be scanned successfully in a broad -brimmed hat. 

 The brim can hardly be too broad ; mine might 

 have been sired by an umbrella. But when I 

 carry an umbrella (my hat is not nearly so large, 

 of course, as an umbrella) nobody sniggers, 

 nobody calls, " Come out, I can see your feet ! " 

 Yet this admonition is commonly offered me by 

 the waggonetteers. This hat, like the hats of 

 other fishermen, is almost covered with flies ; but 

 where else am I to put my flies to dry, now that 

 the front of my fishing coat has no more room 

 for them ? Honestly, I can think of no other 

 place which would be at all convenient. I have 

 a few in my trousers, but they got there un- 

 intentionally, and when I am fishing they are 

 quite inaccessible. I have no reason to think 

 the trousers a good place for carrying flies. And 

 if a broad -brimmed hat covered with feathers and 

 fur is a risible object, what gaiety should reign 

 in Regent Street during shopping hours ! But 

 I have never noticed any excess of it thereabouts 

 at those times. To give an instance of the sort 

 of thing my hat causes otherwise decent people 

 to say, a man once told me that I looked like a 

 boomfood mushroom that had gone into the catch- 

 'em-alive-o business. But what, I ask, am I to 

 do ? Must I suffer agonies from sunburn and eye- 

 strain that malice may have no vent ? I think not. 



