mean

وو

could not receive a challenge from a fish without returning an impetuous "strike" on the instant. One may "strike" too soon as well as too late. In angling, as in everything else, there is a "happy - just the right mode and moment to strike your fish without imperilling your tackling or tearing the hook from his mouth. To invariably compass this right moment requires steadier nerve, greater forbearance and a nicer appreciation of time and opportunity than falls to the lot of most anglers. A few have the gift; but it only comes to old trout fishers after much practice and many discomfitures.

Our friend had been casting half an hour at "a gay gambolier" whose special vocation seemed to be to leap at nothing and keep just a tail's breadth from the lure sent to him. His disportings proved his agility but were provokingly tantalizing; and DUN was just ready to give him up as "a hopeless case," when he made a dash for the fly and was astonished to find himself hooked. With a rush and a leap which eclipsed all his previous demonstrations, he started for the opposite shore as if in a hurry to deliver some message he had forgotten. It was just the last place in the neighborhood of the pool one cared to have his fish take to, for it was full of jagged rocks and hidden bowlders. Aware of this, DUN instantly did his best to bring