id
Tavern. There was something of Shakspere's quickness and elegance in
Willibert's methods; but Cotton Mather had the advantage in learning
and in weight of argument.

"It is unhistorical," he said, "to claim that there is only one proper
way to catch fish. The facts are against you."

"But surely, my dear fellow," replied Willibert, "there is one best
way, and that must be the proper way on which all should unite."

"I don't admit that," said the other, "variety counts for something.
Besides, it is up to you to prove that fly-fishing is the best way."

"Well," answered Willibert, "I fancy that would be easy enough. All the
authorities are on my side. Doesn't every standard writer on angling
say that fly-fishing is the perfection of the art?"

"Not at all," Cotton Mather replied, with some exultation, "Izaak
Walton's book is all about bait-fishing, except two or three pages on
the artificial fly, which were composed for him by Thomas Barker, a
retired confectioner. But suppose all the books were on your side.
There are ten thousand men who love fishing and know about fishing, to
one who writes about it. The proof of the angler is the full basket."

At this Willibert looked disgusted. "You mistake quantity for quality.
It's better to take one fish prettily and fairly than to fill your
basket in an inferior way. Would you catch trout with a net?"

Cotton Mather admitted that he would not.

"Well, then, why not carry your discrimination a little farther and
reject the coarse bait-hook, and the stiff rod, and the heavy line?
Fly-tackle appeals to the aesthetic taste,--the slender, pliant rod with
which you land a fish twenty times its weight, the silken line, the
gossamer leader, the dainty fly of bright feathers concealing the tiny
hook!"

"Concealing!" broke in the advocate of the bait, "that is just the
spirit of the whole art of fly-fishing. It's all a deception. The
slender rod is made of split cane that will bend double before it
breaks; the gossamer leader is of drawn-gut carefully tested to stand a
heavier strain than the rod can put upon it. The trout thinks he can
smash your tackle, but you know he can't, and you play with him
half-an-hour to convince him that you are right. And after all, when
you've landed him, he hasn't had even a taste of anything good to eat
to console him for being caught,--nothing but a little bunch of
feathers which he never would look at if he knew what it was. Don't you
think