cared not which, for the rise was over—I indicated the gut trace. "This," I said, "is the gut, made by extending the entrails of the silkworm. See how strong it is, and how transparent." I tugged at it. "And see here is the fly—a sedge. There are five hundred other patterns (sold at half a crown a dozen), all of which I have in these boxes." I opened my creel, and permitted him to peep within. "This," I went on, "is my bottle of paraffin oil, with which I anoint the fly to make it float more yarely, and so deceive and master these subtle fishes. These are the pincers with which I pick my flies out of their boxes. Here is a tube of dubbin—I smear it on my line, reverend bloke, and this causes it to float most excellently. Thus with but one little twitch I do hook the brutes. Here is a piece of blotting-paper to dry my flies withal if haply they be wetted. Here"
"Good gentleman," he said, interrupting, "no more, I pray you! I am dazed. Tell me but one thing. How cometh it that with so many cunning aids thy skill, which sufficeth surely, as I have seen, hath brought nothing to land in a long day's angling?" I was silent. A question at once more pertinent and more impertinent had never yet been put to me, or one less easy to answer. "Behold," he said, "these my own unworthy weapons; my wand a single limber shoot of ash;
