178 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



necessary for everybody to specialise in their oc- 

 cupations, so special amusements become more 

 and more the rule. No longer does a gentleman 

 excel at hunting and hawking, archery, swordsman- 

 ship, the lute, the improvisation of verses, and a 

 dozen other accomplishments. To-day he has 

 time only for golf, or cricket, or lawn-tennis, 

 or what not. Even in the field of sport com- 

 petition is too keen to allow of excellence in 

 more than one branch, save in the case of a few 

 astonishing persons, whose renown is the best 

 evidence of this condition of affairs. 



Therefore it is very easy to-day for two people 

 to talk with pernicious effect upon a third ; and as 

 conversation, if it is pleasant, tends to follow what 

 some people, among them myself, call "the line 

 of least resistance," this disaster is a common 

 one. 



I have often speculated as to which is the worst 

 shop. For a long time I thought it was the 

 golfer's variety, but my opinion was altered by a 

 discussion based on the performances of league 

 teams. Hunting shop is very generally hated, 

 though I suspect this hatred to be the result of 

 jealousy. Chess shop is dreary enough, but no 

 worse to a person who does not understand that 

 so-called game than, say, musical shop to one who 

 knows nothing of classical music. And the shop 



