INTRODUCTORY AND EGOTISTICAL. 9 



man to row us. The sand of the shore shelving gradually 

 into the water of the lake, and the boat being a heavy, 

 clumsy concern with a keel, we had to wade to get on 

 board ; but this would have been death to old Rice Thomas, 

 whose toes were not even then free from certain twinges of 

 Ms hereditary enemy, the gout ; I therefore took him off 

 the jaunting car on my back, and carried him bodily to 

 the boat, — an act which completely gained the old man's 

 heart, and made him my fast friend as long as he lived. 



Now it is to be remembered that these worthy men 

 were old and experienced Brothers of the Angle ; that I 

 was young, and green, and careless ; that they came to this 

 lake for the special purpose of fishing for salmon ; and that 

 I did not very steadfastly believe in the existence of such 

 a fish in any other place than at Johnny Green's the fish- 

 monger's in William Street, or on the dinner table, accom- 

 panied by parsley and butter — and then it will not excite 

 surprise that they should look sHghtingly at my light rod 

 and tackle, and turn up their noses at my collection of the 

 neatest trout flies that were ever turned out of Sackville 

 Street. However, old Rice Thomas, taking pity on me, 

 picked from his soiled and weather-stained and well-worn 

 pocket-book, a queer-looking, dingy, tarnished, red-bodied, 

 red-hackled, turkey-winged fly, which I thought it about 

 as much use to put upon my casting-line as it would be to 

 bait my hook with an eagle, and go bob for whales : how- 

 ever, I fastened it on, and upon inquiring what I should 



