I had not got sufficient
imagination.
They said that as a poet, or a shilling shocker, or a reporter, or
anything of that kind, I might be satisfactory, but that, to gain any
position as a Thames angler, would require more play of fancy, more power
of invention than I appeared to possess.
Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a
good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing;
but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest
tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the
embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous -
almost of pedantic - veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.
Anybody can come in and say, "Oh, I caught fifteen dozen perch yesterday
evening;" or "Last Monday I landed a gudgeon, weighing eighteen pounds,
and measuring three feet from the tip to the tail."
There is no art, no skill, required for that sort of thing. It shows
pluck, but that is all.
No; your accomplished angler would scorn to tell a lie, that way. His
method is a study in itself.
He comes in quietly with his hat on, appropriates the most comfortable
chair, lights his pipe, and commences to puff in silence.
