upon the grass, and does not fail to look
carefully at the scales when they are weighed, and has an attentive ear
for the comments of admiring spectators. You shall find, moreover, that
he is not unwilling to narrate the story of the capture--how the big
fish rose short, four times, to four different flies, and finally took a
small Black Dose, and played all over the pool, and ran down a terribly
stiff rapid to the next pool below, and sulked for twenty minutes, and
had to be stirred up with stones, and made such a long fight that, when
he came in at last, the hold of the hook was almost worn through, and it
fell out of his mouth as he touched the shore. Listen to this tale as
it is told, with endless variations, by every man who has brought home
a fine fish, and you will perceive that the fisherman does care for his
luck, after all.

And why not? I am no friend to the people who receive the bounties of
Providence without visible gratitude. When the sixpence falls into your
hat, you may laugh. When the messenger of an unexpected blessing takes
you by the hand and lifts you up and bids you walk, you may leap and run
and sing for joy, even as the lame man, whom St. Peter healed, skipped
piously and rejoiced aloud as he passed through the Beautiful Gate of
the Temple. There is no virtue in solemn indifference. Joy is just as
much a duty as beneficence is. Thankfulness is the other side of mercy.

When you have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. Indeed, if
you are not glad, you are not really lucky.

But boasting and self-glorification I would have excluded, and most
of all from the behaviour of the angler. He, more than other men, is
dependent for his success upon the favour of an unseen benefactor. Let
his skill and industry be never so great, he can do nothing unless LA
BONNE CHANCE comes to him.

I was once fishing on a fair little river, the P'tit Saguenay, with two
excellent anglers and pleasant companions, H. E. G---- and C. S. D----.
They had done all that was humanly possible to secure good sport. The
stream had been well preserved. They had boxes full of beautiful flies,
and casting-lines imported from England, and a rod for every fish in the
river. But the weather was "dour," and the water "drumly," and every day
the lumbermen sent a "drive" of ten thousand spruce logs rushing down
the flooded stream. For three days we had not seen a salmon, and on the
fourth, despairing, we went down to angle for s