240 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



They are nincompoops and popinjays and niddings. 

 They are all levity and sham, masqueraders, infirm 

 of purpose, gluttonous, heart-breaking, efferves- 

 cent, undesired, conspiring, omnipresent, ignorant, 

 unspeakable. 



And I will say this . . . 



No, I will say this. 



They make good fishing an irritation and they 

 make bad fishing unbearable. When three fishes, 

 not to be seen, are rising at the same time and 

 you cast to one of them, the other two are good 

 trout. That which you hook is a little grayling 

 which has just enough strength to dart about 

 sufficiently to scare the two trout. When at last 

 you come to Crab Hatch and throw to the fat 

 fish that shows you his head and his tail once 

 a minute on the glide, it is a little grayling that 

 you pull out. When you step cautiously into some 

 shallow backwater, by which manoeuvre alone you 

 shall approach three or four of the largest trout 

 that you have ever seen, it is a little grayling 

 which streaks upstream from between your waders 

 and gives the office (as is said) to his betters. 



For the little grayling is by nature a darter- 

 about, an uneasy, tattling, common informer 5 a 

 comer between a man and his amusements, a kill- 

 joy, a spoil-sport, a breeder of mistrust, a bell- 

 man, a scare-monger, a yellow -journalist, a 



