When, for example, I used to fish at
Rickmansworth in the middle 'sixties, you would see anglers walking
away with their rods and creels from Watford station to various waters
four or five miles distant. There are more railways now, but less
available fishing, and the anglers have multiplied a thousandfold,
making a wonderful change of conditions.

There were plenty of little-known, out-of-the-way places where common
fishing could be had for the asking, and excellent bags made by the
competent. Manford and Serton were two young men who, I suppose, would
have been in the category of Cockney Sportsmen, being workers in City
warehouses, members of neither club nor society, free and independent
lovers of all manner of out-of-door pursuits and country life. They
were both devoted to all-round angling, and Manford, in a modest
degree, fancied himself with the gun. These young men are here
introduced to the reader because a passing sketch of one of their
sporting excursions to the country will indicate a type, and show that
they might be cockney, but were also not undeserving the name of
sportsmen.

The young fellows made their plans in the billiard-room of the Bottle's
Head, just out of Eastcheap, chatting leisurely on the cushions while
waiting for a couple of bank mashers to finish their apparently
never-ending game. Thirty or forty years ago young fellows in the City
did not think so much about holidays as they now do. We have reached a
stage of civilisation when it seems absolutely necessary for our bodily
and spiritual welfare, however comfortably we may be situated in life,
to rush away for a change as regularly as the months of August and
September come round. Manford declared that exhausted nature would
hold out no longer unless he could take a holiday. Serton suggested
that he should try and rub along somehow until nearer October, when he
might go down with him to a quiet little place, where he gushingly
assured him there was splendid fishing, where they might live for next
to nothing, meet with nice people, and be in the midst of one of the
most beautiful parts of the country. The one condition was that
probably they would have to rough it a little. All these were genuine
attractions to S., who agreed to go, M. adding, as they rose to secure
the cues, that besides fishing there would be chances with the rabbits.

A spring-cart and a horsey-looking person were awaiting the travellers
outside the small ro