SPOETING ADVENTURES OF CHARLES 

 CARRINGTON, ESQ. 



RECORDED BY " OLD CALABAR." 



Reader, must I confess it ? I am a Cockney, born 

 and bred in the " little village." Though I passed 

 some eight or ten years in a Government office, yet 

 my heart was not in the work. I had frequent 

 illnesses, which kept me away ; those days — must 

 I own it ? — were generally spent in a punt at 

 Weybridge with one of the Keens. At Walton or 

 Halliford I was great in a Thames punt ; and I 

 then imagined few could hold a candle to me in a 

 gudgeon or roach swim ; that I was the fisherman 

 of England, par excellence. I am wiser now. 



At last my absences from office were so frequent 

 that I had quiet intimation to go ; but, having 

 friends who were pretty high in office, I got an 

 annuity in the shape of ninety pounds a year. A 

 fresh berth was procured for me at four hundred 

 per annum, where I had a good deal of running 

 about. This suited me much better, as it enabled 



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