202 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



there was a cap of his with a Red Sedge I had dressed for 

 him left carelessly in it, and a dilapidated Orange Quill. 

 Another rod had left a landing-net of a sort, and yet another 

 a knee-pad. Having taken the precaution to ascertain 

 that none of these rods were expected, I commandeered 

 reel, cap, net, and knee-pad, and proceeded, while the 

 keeper assembled my rod, to damp my cast in a saucer 

 and to put the cast, with a point or two, into my tobacco- 

 pouch emptied and wetted inside for the purpose. Pres- 

 ently the keeper came to me with a fact of grave concern. 

 The reel seat of my rod was too small for the saddle of my 

 reel. Was I done ? No. I had gone too far in my 

 career of crime to be turned back by a little thing like that. 

 There was a rod on the rack, a greenheart with a splice, 

 held together, with a sort of diachylon tape. It would 

 have to do without that support for a few hours. 



So see me presently setting forth to the river in a cap 

 not my own, with a decayed-looking but capacious landing- 

 net, my reel affixed with a plaster, and all the apparatus of 

 the chalk-stream fly fisher except a creel. 



It was half-past three when I reached the river, about the 

 dullest hour of the day, and after watching the stream for 

 ten minutes or so without a sign of a dimple of any sort, 

 I determined to take a look at a carrier hard by to see if 

 some more accommodating trout might not be found. I 

 scared the first, but presently I found a nice enough trout 

 lying out on a gravel patch below a culvert. The Sedge 

 was made for such an occasion, and presently it lit just 

 behind the head of the fish, who promptly turned and had 

 it. It was rather a nuisance carrying him in the landing- 

 net — but, after all, the hut was not far off. To reach it 

 one followed the smaller stream for a few hundred yards 

 — perhaps three. But now a little pale watery dun was 

 in the air. Should it be Tup's Indispensable or the Little 

 Pale Olive with the gold rib ? I always rather fancied 



