272 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



RAPT : Then, sir, you have my sympathy, for a 

 merrier hour's work I have never known. I have 

 taken the number limit, three brace of as fine 

 trouts as ever were seen. There is eighteen 

 pounds weight here, in my fish-bag. 



VEN: This is some pot-hunting fisherman, I 

 fear. 



Pise : Why, sir, you have indeed been fortu- 

 nate. But I am told that a silver doctor, run 

 through these Clere hatch-holes 



RAPT : A murrain o' your silver doctors, sir ! 

 It was a dark olive quill. 



Pise : Indeed, sir ? 



RAPT : Ay, marry ! The rise of a lifetime, sir. 

 The fly came on at nine of the clock, but there 

 hath been none for this half-hour, and so I am for 

 home with my three brace. 



Pise : To sell them at the fishmonger's, sir ? 



RAPT : Good-day, sir. 



VEN : Alas, I fear we have lost some noble 

 sport. 



Pise : I fear that this good gentleman is a liar. 

 Did you mark, scholar, how he made no offer to 

 show us this great catch of trouts ? 



VEN: True, good master. Then we are to 

 doubt his story ? 



Pise : Most shrewdly. 



