230 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



So, in such waters, he never receives the compli- 

 ment for which his snobbish soul craves. But 

 where trout and grayling of three to four pounds 

 are fairly common possibilities, your plump chevin, 

 well dissimulated in a deep place, may easily pass 

 for a sporting and desirable fish. Then, like the 

 mock Alexander after that encounter in St. 

 James's Street, he is well content, and if an 

 angler should take him seriously and offer him a 

 cocked dun he has to put a fearful force upon 

 himself to refrain from rising to it. How he 

 boasts to the daces afterwards. 



It has now become my duty to expose this 

 impostor. The other rods must know, and any 

 visitor who comes to fish, that the vicinity of 

 the wooden bridge is polluted. Purfling I am 

 tempted to send after " a great trout that defies 

 all my skill." His subsequently expressed pity 

 for my ignorance would be of a delicate savour. 

 But no. Purfling must be told like the rest. 

 It would be injudicious to send Purfling after a 

 chevin. 



There is no saying what kind of a seizure would 

 carry him off, and I do not desire Purfling's death. 

 His pity I could bear but not his obituary notices. 

 And, away from the river, I believe him to be a 

 useful citizen. He addresses meetings (I am told), 

 and it is well that meetings should be addressed. 



