gentle water-voles. These creatures cannot understand what he is saying. They cannot put him to shame. He can invoke anything or anybody in their hearing without discomfort.
I discovered this great truth some years ago, on this very water, in the following circumstances: I was the sport of a cross wind, a strong current, and five fat fish feeding furiously. When for the sixth or seventh time the familiar crack sounded in my ears, and the gut, lashed with passionate vehemence across the gale, smote the water, and the heavy thud which should have announced the descent of the fly did not happen, then I deliberately and with great labour (I stood up to my middle in the Clere) withdrew my right foot from the soft mud and stamped it violently and without sound back again. This affording me no relief, I addressed flies, fish, wind, water, and myself in one comprehensive and incredibly ridiculous curse. In fancy's full career a movement on shore caused me to turn round, and I perceived our decent miller waddling rapidly away, and shame struck me dumb. Since then I have always insisted on the advantages of complete solitude.
It is easy to reply that I am not a good angler, and have no right to use myself in support of my own proposition. Nay, nay; nothing is said about the patience of good anglers. It is anglers in the
