X 

 THREE WILD DAYS IN WESSEX 



IT was hard to understand at the time why, 

 at the natural and innocent inquiry as to 

 his favourite bait, the local authority should 

 suddenly shut up like some sensitive plant. 

 He had been nobly and generously ex- 

 pansive, measuring his catches of fish as if 

 they were coals, by the sack, but now he was 

 reticent and cautious. " Sometimes I use 

 one thing, sometimes another/' he said. 



The reason for the change of attitude 

 became clear later (when he was one day 

 discovered in close proximity to a net), but 

 for the present it mattered not. It was 

 enough that he had revealed where fishing 

 was to be had which involved the substitution 

 of a sack for the more ordinary and modest 

 creel, and there was no unnecessary delay 



in putting this important discovery to the 



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