e of my questions about the happy
people at Netherbate was precisely as I have written it. Of course the
calls of romance had been fully answered by the marriage of Lamia to
the vicar, and Belinda to cousin, and sunshine had blessed them all in
basket and in store. I was now to learn that while the parties were
still free they had continued their angling studies and practice, duly
progressing from wet to dry fly, from trout to salmon.

"In fact," said the archdeacon, "I have had a letter from your old pal
'Blinders' this very day, telling me that she landed a Tweed fish
yesterday above Kelso, and her boy was allowed to hold the rod while
the boat rowed ashore. Lamia started by the train just now to join in
her fishing, and I am left to the dubious excitements of the Congress.
So glad to see you looking so well! Adieu."

CHAPTER IX

A CONTRAST IN THAMES ANGLING

My personal knowledge of the Thames trout is not profound; but if it
has left me somewhat short of the affection which many anglers
proclaim, it has inspired a high respect; and if my interest in him is
not precisely direct, I always have been able to sympathise keenly with
his multitude of lovers and admirers. On this entrance upon another
Thames trout season I have him in my thoughts, and am pleased to know
that his status, character, and honour are on the whole nothing
diminished as the years revolve. In the past I have, indeed, seen
something of Thames trouting, and though I have, by lack of
opportunity, not engaged largely in it, yet have formed ideas upon the
subject that may be formulated as a seasonable topic. Also I have
reason to remember this fish as figuring in one of the curious
printer's errors of my early journalism. In a special big-type article
in a daily paper I had glorified the breed and the business by the
magniloquent demand "Who that has battled with a fine Thames trout in a
thundering weir will ever forget, etc., etc.?" The step from the
sublime to the ridiculous appeared next morning in the rendering "Who
that has _bathed_ with, etc., etc."

The ichthyologists who have made a study of the interesting salmon
family have, perforce, unanimously agreed that the Thames trout is of
the house of Brown: is in a word a true _Salmo fario_. But these
learned gentlemen seem to have overlooked the equally undeniable fact
that there are three distinct species of this excellent fish. First
comes the Thames trout of the professiona