4 PREFACE 



allers loved fishin', an' know'd 'twas the best 

 thing in the hull airth. I knows it larnt ye 

 more about creeters an' yarbs an' stuns an' water 

 than books could tell ye. I know'd it made folks 

 patienter and common-senser an' weather-wiser 

 an' cuter gen'ally ; gin 'em more fac'lty than all 

 the school larnin' in creation. I knowed it was 

 more fillin' than vittles, more rousin' than whiskey, 

 more soothin' than lodlum. I knowed it cooled 

 ye off when ye was het, an' het ye when ye was 

 cold. I knowed all that, o' course, — any fool 

 knows it. But will ye bleve it } I was more'n 

 twenty-one years old, a man growed, 'fore I foun' 

 out why 'twas that way.'' 



The object of this little book is to explain to 

 even the youngest reader what " Fishin' Jimmy " 

 did not find out till he was "a man growed." 



I have never had cause to regret that my own 

 ancestors were professional fishermen, and that I 

 have been one myself. My father, his father, and 

 his father, and so on for several more generations, 

 were watermen and fishermen on the English 

 Thames. I cannot recollect, therefore, when I 

 first became an angler ; but hke Topsy, " I specs 

 I grow'd" to be one from the cradle. Self-help 



