HOOKED FOUL. 211 



" Some prefer one method and some another," he said to 

 me ; " but for real honest sport-yielding pike-fishing, depend 

 upon it there is nothing like a neat spinning-flight. 



" Come, come ; don't shrug your shoulders ! " he observed 

 to the prosaic B , who had resigned himself to the inflic- 

 tion without concealing his feelings. 



" I knpw too well how terrible a bore an angler is to an 

 unsympathetic town man like you, who have not a soul above 

 a brief-bag, and who would not know a gudgeon from a 

 barbel. Bless you ! I should disdain to waste a delicious 

 story of rises, runs, bites, strikes, and gaffihgs, upon the like 

 of you. My pearls are reserved for those who will not turn 

 about and rend me. Still, as you are in my den, and as you 

 have been kind enough to notice my rod-rack, and the rest 

 of my fishing gear yonder — which you may notice is in 

 apple-pie order, ready for immediate use — I will trouble you 

 to listen to one reason of my partiality for the spinning- 

 flight. 



" Let me see, it was — Ah ! never mind when it happened. 

 It was not this year, nor last, nor the year before that. 

 Enough that I begin with a certain fresh autumn morning. 

 The crunch of the dogcart wheels on the gravel beneath my 

 bed-room window reminded me that I had overslept myself, 

 and. that there would be some one outside cooling his heels, 

 unless he was much altered since I had seen him last, in 

 anything but a Christian frame of mind. My oversleeping 

 was indulged in at the cost of considerable discomfort, in- 

 asmuch as when we had sped merrily over a couple of the 

 ten miles before us, I discovered that neither gafif-hook nor 

 landing net had been packed up. 



" You ca,ll tha.t a trifle do you ? A trifle ! But, of course, 



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