They are nincompoops and popinjays and niddings. They are all levity and sham, masqueraders, infirm of purpose, gluttonous, heart-breaking, effervescent, undesired, conspiring, omnipresent, ignorant, unspeakable.
And I will say this…
No, I will say this.
They make good fishing an irritation and they make bad fishing unbearable. When three fishes, not to be seen, are rising at the same time and you cast to one of them, the other two are good trout. That which you hook is a little grayling —which has just enough strength to dart about sufficiently to scare the two trout. When at last you come to Crab Hatch and throw to the fat fish that shows you his head and his tail once a minute on the glide, it is a little grayling that you pull out. When you step cautiously into some shallow backwater, by which manœuvre alone you shall approach three or four of the largest trout that you have ever seen, it is a little grayling which streaks upstream from between your waders and gives the office (as is said) to his betters.
For the little grayling is by nature a darter-about, an uneasy, tattling, common informer, a comer between a man and his amusements, a kill-joy, a spoil-sport, a breeder of mistrust, a bell-man, a scare-monger, a yellow-journalist, a
