V. A New Way to catch Old Trout. "We will not stand to prate; Talkers are no good doers; be assured We come to use our hands, and not our tongues." I TOLD Anderson that after a recital of such a disgraceful kind I really could not shake hands with him for some hours, and as he was far too polite to leave until I did so, he felt compelled, of course, to stay on: so, having broken the ice of confidences, he plunged into the well of confession. "There is a lot of affectation in these things," he said, " and if the adventures of a literary poacher are ever put upon the market, there will be a considerable extension of nefarious practices. I could tell you a story of depravity beside which that of my first salmon pales its ineffectual vice, and becomes an episode of the saints." "Sail in," I said encouragingly; "dip your pencil in eclipse. Human nature revolts from crime, and revels in the police news. 'Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, is our destined end or way, but to act that each to-morrow may' have something interesting to yarn about." "Shakespeare and the Music Hall glasses!" said my friend, with a laugh. "What you mean, I suppose, is that distance lends enchantment to the view. At our age we use every endeavour to prevent boys from doing what we ourselves once loved to do and now laugh over. We even go so far as to say that all things lawful are not expedient." "Yes," I said, "and to enforce the morals of St. Paul we examine our young men in the geography of his journeys." "Philo "A good obsairve," said Anderson. sophers of all nations have noted the pleasures of mala prohibita, and the sinister attractiveness of mala in se. But to my tale." "It is an odd thing," I said parenthetically, "that morality should be so dependent on per spective. So long as you don't actually break the law in an obvious manner, you can do any mortal thing you like-only take care that you are not found out before you can call your peccadillo ancient history.' 'It's some years ago now' is the preface to many a narrative of escapades which though in themselves disgraceful are mellowed, like wine, by age." "You are letting me down easy, I see," said my friend. "What I am about to tell you took place very long ago-long before the salmon incident-and was not much worse than Cholmondeley Pennell's trying to gaff that pike he writes about, contra bonos mores, as It was a throw back to barbarism, he says. that's all." "Let's hear about your peccadillo," I said. "How sad and bad and mad it was,' and likewise 'how it was sweet." "Here goes, then. One morning in the dateless and unblamable long ago, I received the rare excitement of a letter, and the still more infrequent pleasure of an invitation to spend a few days at that same uncle's. This was whole æons before the salmon episode, and the easiness of my fall under that trial may no doubt be traced to this amongst other early backslidings. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, you know. No one very base was ever sorry,' as I once heard a boy translate it. "The letter in question was from Rob, and merely directed me to come on at once, and bring my fives-shoes. Lawn tennis had not then been invented, and I could only conclude that some difficult tree-climbing was in prospect, or that fives was permitted, or at anyrate practised, in the attics. My cousins were fertile in fancy, and the mysterious message was redolent of a new, and probably unlawful game. "When I arrived at the house, my uncle gave me, I remember, a hearty greeting, and said he hoped I had brought my fishing-rod, as there were plenty of trout that wanted catching, and there were also perch in the pond. But when I was alone with my cousins they explained that as soon as their father had departed next day to perform the duties of a county magistrate they intended to adopt a more fruitful method of bagging trout than that he had suggested. "Tickling? No, they scorned the idea of tickling as old-fashioned, difficult, and doubtful, and unfolded a plan which for sheer poaching villainy stood well ahead of anything in my experience. The trout stream, you must know, this line on the table,--was small, and ran at no great distance from the bottom of the garden where the perch pond was which I mentioned just now-this ash-tray. A small offshoot of the main stream fed this pond, and rejoined the bigger one below-about here. Lower down (off the edge of the table) came the bridge from which I afterwards dropped the stone. "So much for the geography. Well, the executive power being out of the way, we sallied forth in our fives-shoes, armed with rods (as a blind to the governess, I suppose), a saloon pistol, an old wooden bucket, a spade, and a hatchet. We went silently down the garden,-does not what's-his-name say in the play that 'silence is the perfectest herald of joy'? Mischief and joy are convertible terms |