there was no division hedge, or railing, and evidently no preservation,
for the mouchers came and washed their water-cress which they had
gathered in the ditches by the side hatch, and no one interfered with
them.

There was no keeper or water bailiff, not even a notice board.
Policemen, on foot and mounted, passed several times daily, and, like
everybody else, paused to see the sport, but said not a word. Clearly,
there was nothing whatever to prevent any of those present from angling
in the stream; yet they one and all, without exception, fished in the
pond. This seemed to me a very remarkable fact.

After a while I noticed another circumstance; nobody ever even looked
into the stream or under the arches of the bridge. No one spared a
moment from his float amid the scum of the pond, just to stroll twenty
paces and glance at the swift current. It appeared from this that the
pond had a reputation for fish, and the brook had not. Everybody who had
angled in the pond recommended his friends to go and do likewise. There
were fish in the pond.

So every fresh comer went and angled there, and accepted the fact that
there were fish. Thus the pond obtained a traditionary reputation, which
circulated from lip to lip round about. I need not enlarge on the
analogy that exists in this respect between the pond and various other
things.

By implication it was evidently as much understood and accepted on the
other hand that there was nothing in the stream. Thus I reasoned it out,
sitting under the aspen, and yet somehow the general opinion did not
satisfy me. There must be something in so sweet a stream. The sedges by