358 NOTES ON" PISH AND FISHING. 



there is nothing in it, and that everybody could do it if 

 he cared to try. Well then, my self-complacent reader, I 

 would again say "try it." If you have never punted 

 before, I would give you a year to get a punt up stream 

 the last two hundred yards to Monkey Island, or by the 

 Eton playing fields to Windsor Weir, and a decade to fix 

 it to two ripecks, as you see a Thames fisherman do with 

 such apparent ease — and you would not do it. I give you 

 this fair time for your work because you would pro- 

 bably be overboard, and perhaps food for fishes, before 

 you had hardly begun your task, and learnt to think more 

 humbly of yourself and more highly of others 5 skill. If 

 you want to know the difficulty of punting, as I have said 

 " try it." If you want to learu the art, take some lessons 

 from, and diligently observe the unequalled skill of a 

 Thames fisherman. 



But here is a terrible digression — redeamus. The punt 

 is fixed above the destined swim, only to be moved when 

 erratic barges threaten to sweep you bodily away, or the 

 wash of a stinko-rattle-pot, by a euphemism entitled " a 

 steam launch/ 5 causes your punt to draw her ripecks 

 from the bed of the river, or for piscatorial reasons, you 

 think a change of scene desirable. When so moored, 

 your Thames fisherman is " all attention/ 5 No nurse or 

 body servant is more devoted to you, or anticipative of all 

 your wants. He plumbs your depth, he baits your hook, 

 he watches your float, he administers the carefully con- 

 cocted groundbait, he lands your fish, he unbungs the 

 stone bottle, he uncorks your Bass, Allsopp, or Guinness, 

 he drinks to your "good luck, sir, 55 he fills your pipe 

 and lights it (and his own too), he holds an umbrella 

 over you in the rain and a sunshade in the mid- day 



