Pisc. I'll tell you by and by, when I have caught him. Look you here, sir, do you see? (but you must stand very close), there lie upon the top of the water, in this very hole, twenty chubs. I'll catch only one, and that shall be the biggest of them all; and that I will do so, I'll hold you twenty to one, and you shall see it done.

VEN. Ay, marry, sir, now you talk like an artist, and I'll say you are one, when I shall see you perform what you say you can do; but I yet doubt it.

PISC. You shall not doubt it long, for you shall see me do it presently look, the biggest of these chubs has had some bruise upon his tail by a pike, or some other accident, and that looks like a white spot; that very chub I mean to put into your hands presently; sit you but down in the shade, and stay but a little while, and I'll warrant you I'll bring him to you.

VEN. I'll sit down, and hope well, because you seem to be so confident.

PISC. Look you, sir, there is a trial of my skill,* there he is, that very chub that I showed you with the white spot on his tail and I'll be as certain to make him a good dish of meat, as I was to catch him. I'll now lead you to an honest ale-house where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall; there my hostess, which, I may tell you, is both cleanly and handsome, and civil, hath dressed many a one for me, and shall now dress it after my fashion, and I warrant it good meat.

* Walton does not explain the particulars of his trial of skill. Evidently, the chub was caught by dibbing or daping with a natural insect. See the seventh paragraph of chap. iii., beginning, "Go to the same hole," etc. See also my remarks at the end of chap. iii.-ED.

VEN. Come, sir, with all my heart, for I begin to be hungry, and long to be at it, and indeed to rest myself too; for though I have walked but four miles this morning, yet I begin to be weary; yesterday's hunting hangs still upon me. PISC. Well, sir, you shall quickly be at rest, for yonder is the house I mean to bring you to.

Come, Hostess, how do you do? Will you first give me a cup of your best drink, and then dress this chub as you dressed my last, when I and my friend were here about eight or ten days ago? But you must do me one courtesy, it must be done instantly.

HOSTESS. I will do it, Mr. Piscator, and with all the speed

I can.

Pisc. Now, sir, has not my hostess made haste? and does not the fish look lovely?

VEN. Both, upon my word, sir, and therefore let's say grace, and fall to eating of it.

PISC. Well, sir, how do you like it?

VEN. Trust me, 'tis as good meat as I ever tasted: now let me thank you for it, drink to you, and beg a courtesy of you; but it must not be denied me.

PISC. What is it, I pray, sir? You are so modest, that methinks I may promise to grant it before it is asked.

VEN. Why, sir, it is, that from henceforth you would allow me to call you Master, and that really I may be your scholar; for you are such a companion, and have so quickly caught, and so excellently cooked this fish, as makes me ambitious to be your scholar.

PISC. Give me your hand; from this time forward I will be your master, and teach you as much of this art as I am able; and will, as you desire me, tell you somewhat of the nature of most of the fish that we are to angle for; and I am sure I both can and will tell you more than any common Angler yet knows.

HOW TO FISH FOR, AND TO DRESS, THE CHAVENDER, OR CHUB.

PISC. The Chub, though he eat well thus dressed, yet as he is usually dressed he does not. He is objected against, not only for being full of small forked bones, dispersed through all his body, but that he eats waterish and that the flesh of

him is not firm, but short and tasteless. The French esteem him so mean as to call him un vilain; nevertheless, he may be so dressed as to make him very good meat; as, namely, if he be a large chub, then dress him thus :—

First, scale him, and then wash him clean, and then take out his guts; and to that end make the hole as little and near to his gills, as you may conveniently, and especially make clean his throat from the grass and weeds that are usually in it; for if that be not very clean, it will make him to taste very sour. Having so done, put some sweet herbs into his belly; and then tie him with two or three splinters to a spit, and roast him, basted often with vinegar, or rather verjuice and butter, with good store of salt mixed with it. Being thus dressed, you will find him a much better dish of meat than you, or most folk, even than anglers themselves, do imagine for this dries up the fluid watery humour with which all chubs do abound.

But take this rule with you, that a chub newly taken and newly dressed is so much better than a chub of a day's keeping after he is dead, that I can compare him to nothing so fitly as to cherries newly gathered from a tree, and others that have been bruised and lain a day or two in water. But the chub being thus used, and dressed presently, and not washed after he is gutted (for note, that lying long in water, and washing the blood out of any fish after they be gutted, abates much of their sweetness), you will find the chub (being dressed in the blood, and quickly) to be such meat as will recompense your labour, and disabuse your opinion.

Or you may dress the chavender or chub thus :

When you have scaled him, and cut off his tail and fins, and washed him very clean, then chine or slit him through the middle, as a salt fish is usually cut; then give him three or four cuts or scotches on the back with your knife, and broil him on charcoal, or wood-coal that is free from smoke, and all the time he is a-broiling baste him with the best sweet butter, and good store of salt mixed with it; and to this add a little thyme cut exceeding small, or bruised into the butter. The cheven thus dressed hath the watery taste taken away, for which so many except against him. Thus was the cheven dressed that you now liked so well, and commended so much. But note again, that if this chub that you ate of, had been kept till to-morrow, he had not been worth a rush. And remember that his throat be washed very clean,

I say very clean, and his body not washed after he is gutted, as indeed no fish should be.

Well, scholar, you see what pains I have taken to recover the lost credit of the poor despised chub.* And now I will give you some rules how to catch him; and I am glad to enter you into the art of fishing by catching a chub, for there is no fish better to enter a young angler, he is so easily caught, but then it must be this particular way.

Go to the same hole in which I caught my chub, where in most hot days you will find a dozen or twenty chevens floating near the top of the water: get two or three grasshoppers as you go over the meadow, and get secretly behind the tree, and stand as free from motion as is possible; then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your rod on some bough of the tree. But it is likely the chubs will sink down towards the bottom of the water, at the first shadow of your rod (for chub is the fearfulest of fishes), and will do so if but a bird flies over him and makes the least, shadow on the water. But they will presently rise up to the top again, and there lie soaring till some shadow affrights them again. I say, when they lie upon the top of the water, look out the best chub (which you, setting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see), and move your rod as softly as a

* The edible properties of the chub are very lightly prized. That celebrated cuisinier, Alexis Soyer, says, in his "Modern Housewife," p. 160-" Chub I do not think much of, but it no doubt depends on the river where taken; those caught in the winter are best. They may be cooked like carp." M. Soyer gives an excellent recipe for cooking the latter fish. "Baked Carp.-Procure a good-sized carp, stuff it like the pike (with veal stuffing, adding a few fillets of anchovies and chopped lemon-peel), then put it into a baking-dish, with two onions, one carrot, one turnip, one head of celery, and a good bouquet of parsley, thyme, and bay-leaf; moisten with two glasses of port wine, half a pint of water, salt, pepper, and oil, and put it in a moderate oven about two hours to bake; try if done with a knife, which is the case if the flesh leave the bone easily; dress upon a dish without a napkin; then have ready the following sauce: mince a large Spanish onion with two common ones, and put them into a stew-pan with three spoonfuls of salad oil, sauté rather a yellow colour, add two glasses of port wine and one spoonful of flour, mix all well together, add a pint of broth (reserved from some soup), or water, with half an ounce of glaze, or half a gill of brown gravy; boil it up, drain the stock the carp was cooked in from the vegetables, which also add to the sauce: boil well at the corner of the stove, skim, and when rather thick, add a teaspoonful of Harvey sauce, one of essence of anchovies, and a little Cayenne pepper, pour all the liquor drained from the fish out of your dish, sauce over, and serve." The above is a capital way of cooking coarse river-fish, chub, bream, tench, and barbel, and even very large roach.-ED.