how to use it. And it might blow my hand off. And how should I fish then?
I do not know that I want to fish any more. As one grows older one gets a new way of looking at things. Youth has a distorted vision. For Turkish Delight at one time I would have bartered my soul. To-day it nauseates me. So with angling. Years ago I would, if I could, have killed trout all day, and under any weight of them staggered home rejoicing; the greater the weight, the louder my rejoicing. In those days my joy was clouded by no misgivings; no compunction dulled my appetite for slaughter. I was wholly callous to any destruction I had wrought. Those bright, dead bodies loaded my back only. My souldid I have a soul then? Who knows? But had I succeeded in bartering it for Turkish Delight, the other party to the transaction would infallibly have been swindled—however little of his wares he had yielded. Yes, I gloried in butchery.
And to-day? Well, lately I have had doubts. They have always been put sternly away, for the angling habit strikes deep roots, and it is foolish to examine settled convictions. Only misery can come of it. And, until the last year or two, my conviction that trout exist for anglers to catch has been founded on the rock. But now I find that it
