240 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



gentleman who had given over fishing and was dangling his 

 spoon over the stern, to the effect that the pool was full of 

 pike, and that he had caught ten prime fish yesterday, was 

 not received with that genial delight one sportsman should 

 feel in the prosperity of another. My friend, couched under 

 the umbrella in the bows, surveyed me with grim speech- 

 lessness, and smiled. Thank goodness, he referred no more 

 to the abnormally high maximum I had given him to repre- 

 sent the weight of the Llangorst monsters. Yet I had read 

 the same in honest printer's type. 



The afternoon, in short, was the deadest of blanks ; it 

 rained incessantly. The road by which, at the expense of 

 an additional half mile, we avoided the terrors of mead 

 and bog on our return, was more unpleasant than our former 

 route ; the trains were late ; the whole prospect blurred 

 and blotted. I have a vivid remembrance of that unlucky 

 Saturday ; for I ruined a new hat, caught" a severe catarrh, 

 found out that the waterproof man had cheated me, and 

 have reason to believe — no friendly communication having 

 been received from him since — that I mortally offended arii 

 intelligent and useful acquaintance because of that fifty- 

 pound pike. 



Practical Notes on Welsh Waters. 

 Having determined to write the history in brief of three 

 unlucky days in Wales, and having fulfilled my purpose, I 

 must, in justice to Wales, hasten to show that there is a 

 reverse side to the picture of its angling capabilities. Days, 

 happily the opposite of those I have described, have I 

 enjoyed as regards both weather and sport. Wales can still 



