WASHING DAY. - FISH AND FISHERS. - ON THE ART OF ANGLING. - ACONSCIENTIOUS FLY-FISHER. - A FISHY STORY.

　　WE stayed two days at Streatley, and got our clothes washed. We hadtried washing them ourselves, in the river, under George'ssuperintendence, and it had been a failure. Indeed, it had been morethan a failure, because we were worse off after we had washed our clothesthan we were before. Before we had washed them, they had been very, verydirty, it is true; but they were just wearable. AFTER we had washed them- well, the river between Reading and Henley was much cleaner, after wehad washed our clothes in it, than it was before. All the dirt containedin the river between Reading and Henley, we collected, during that wash,and worked it into our clothes.

　　The washerwoman at Streatley said she felt she owed it to herself tocharge us just three times the usual prices for that wash. She said ithad not been like washing, it had been more in the nature of excavating.

　　We paid the bill without a murmur.

　　The neighbourhood of Streatley and Goring is a great fishing centre.

　　There is some excellent fishing to be had here. The river abounds inpike, roach, dace, gudgeon, and eels, just here; and you can sit and fishfor them all day.

　　Some people do. They never catch them. I never knew anybody catchanything, up the Thames, except minnows and dead cats, but that hasnothing to do, of course, with fishing! The local fisherman's guidedoesn't say a word about catching anything. All it says is the place is"a good station for fishing;" and, from what I have seen of the district,I am quite prepared to bear out this statement.

　　There is no spot in the world where you can get more fishing, or whereyou can fish for a longer period. Some fishermen come here and fish fora day, and others stop and fish for a month. You can hang on and fishfor a year, if you want to: it will be all the same.

　　The ANGLER'S GUIDE TO THE THAMES says that "jack and perch are also to behad about here," but there the ANGLER'S GUIDE is wrong. Jack and perchmay BE about there. Indeed, I know for a fact that they are. You canSEE them there in shoals, when you are out for a walk along the banks:

　　they come and stand half out of the water with their mouths open forbiscuits. And, if you go for a bathe, they crowd round, and get in yourway, and irritate you. But they are not to be "had" by a bit of worm onthe end of a hook, nor anything like it - not they!

　　I am not a good fisherman myself. I devoted a considerable amount ofattention to the subject at one time, and was getting on, as I thought,fairly well; but the old hands told me that I should never be any realgood at it, and advised me to give it up. They said that I was anextremely neat thrower, and that I seemed to have plenty of gumption forthe thing, and quite enough constitutional laziness. But they were sureI should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficientimagination.

　　They said that as a poet, or a shilling shocker, or a reporter, oranything of that kind, I might be satisfactory, but that, to gain anyposition as a Thames angler, would require more play of fancy, more powerof invention than I appeared to possess.

　　Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make agood fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing;but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriesttyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, theembellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous -almost of pedantic - veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.

　　Anybody can come in and say, "Oh, I caught fifteen dozen perch yesterdayevening;" or "Last Monday I landed a gudgeon, weighing eighteen pounds,and measuring three feet from the tip to the tail."There is no art, no skill, required for that sort of thing. It showspluck, but that is all.

　　No; your accomplished angler would scorn to tell a lie, that way. Hismethod is a study in itself.

　　He comes in quietly with his hat on, appropriates the most comfortablechair, lights his pipe, and commences to puff in silence. He lets theyoungsters brag away for a while, and then, during a momentary lull, heremoves the pipe from his mouth, and remarks, as he knocks the ashes outagainst the bars:

　　"Well, I had a haul on Tuesday evening that it's not much good my tellinganybody about.""Oh! why's that?" they ask.

　　"Because I don't expect anybody would believe me if I did," replies theold fellow calmly, and without even a tinge of bitterness in his tone, ashe refills his pipe, and requests the landlord to bring him three ofScotch, cold.

　　There is a pause after this, nobody feeling sufficiently sure of himselfto contradict the old gentleman. So he has to go on by himself withoutany encouragement.

　　"No," he continues thoughtfully; "I shouldn't believe it myself ifanybody told it to me, but it's a fact, for all that. I had been sittingthere all the afternoon and had caught literally nothing - except a fewdozen dace and a score of jack; and I was just about giving it up as abad job when I suddenly felt a rather smart pull at the line. I thoughtit was another little one, and I went to jerk it up. Hang me, if I couldmove the rod! It took me half-an-hour - half-an-hour, sir! - to landthat fish; and every moment I thought the line was going to snap! Ireached him at last, and what do you think it was? A sturgeon! a fortypound sturgeon! taken on a line, sir! Yes, you may well look surprised -I'll have another three of Scotch, landlord, please."And then he goes on to tell of the astonishment of everybody who saw it;and what his wife said, when he got home, and of what Joe Buggles thoughtabout it.

　　I asked the landlord of an inn up the river once, if it did not injurehim, sometimes, listening to the tales that the fishermen about theretold him; and he said:

　　"Oh, no; not now, sir. It did used to knock me over a bit at first, but,lor love you! me and the missus we listens to `em all day now. It's whatyou're used to, you know. It's what you're used to."I knew a young man once, he was a most conscientious fellow, and, when hetook to fly-fishing, he determined never to exaggerate his hauls by morethan twenty-five per cent.

　　"When I have caught forty fish," said he, "then I will tell people that Ihave caught fifty, and so on. But I will not lie any more than that,because it is sinful to lie."But the twenty-five per cent. plan did not work well at all. He neverwas able to use it. The greatest number of fish he ever caught in oneday was three, and you can't add twenty-five per cent. to three - atleast, not in fish.

　　So he increased his percentage to thirty-three-and-a-third; but that,again, was awkward, when he had only caught one or two; so, to simplifymatters, he made up his mind to just double the quantity.

　　He stuck to this arrangement for a couple of months, and then he grewdissatisfied with it. Nobody believed him when he told them that he onlydoubled, and he, therefore, gained no credit that way whatever, while hismoderation put him at a disadvantage among the other anglers. When hehad really caught three small fish, and said he had caught six, it usedto make him quite jealous to hear a man, whom he knew for a fact had onlycaught one, going about telling people he had landed two dozen.

　　So, eventually, he made one final arrangement with himself, which he hasreligiously held to ever since, and that was to count each fish that ............