Fisherman's Luck and Some Other Uncertain Things

Has it ever fallen in your way to notice the quality of the greetings that belong to certainoccupations?There is something about these salutations in kind which is singularly taking andgrateful to the ear. They are as much better than an ordinary "good day" or a flat "how areyou?" as a folk-song of Scotland or the Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of thedrawing-room. They have a spicy and rememberable flavour. They speak to theimagination and point the way to treasure-trove. There is a touch of dignity in them, too, for all they are so free and easy-the dignity ofindependence, the native spirit of one who takes for granted that his mode of living has aright to make its own forms of speech. I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute theworld in the dialect of his calling. How salty and stimulating, for example, is the sailorman's hail of "Ship ahoy!" It is like abreeze laden with briny odours and a pleasant dash of spray. The miners in some parts ofGermany have a good greeting for their dusky trade. They cry to one who is going down theshaft, "Gluck auf!" All the perils of an underground adventure and all the joys of seeing thesun again are compressed into a word. Even the trivial salutation which the telephone haslately created and claimed for its peculiar use-"Hello, hello"-seems to me to have a kindof fitness and fascination. It is like a thoroughbred bulldog, ugly enough to be attractive. There is a lively, concentrated, electric air about it. It makes courtesy wait upon dispatch, and reminds us that we live in an age when it is necessary to be wide awake. I have often wished that every human employment might evolve its own appropriategreeting. Some of them would be queer, no doubt; but at least they would be animprovement on the wearisome iteration of "Good-evening" and "Good-morning," and themonotonous inquiry, "How do you do?"-a question so meaningless that it seldom tarriesfor an answer. Under the new and more natural system of etiquette, when you passed thetime of day with a man you would know his business, and the salutations of the marketplace would be full of interest. As for my chosen pursuit of angling (which I follow with diligence when not interruptedby less important concerns), I rejoice with every true fisherman that it has a greeting all itsown and of a most honourable antiquity. There is no written record of its origin. But it isquite certain that since the days after the Flood, when Deucalion"Did first this art inventOf angling, and his people taught the same,"two honest and good-natured anglers have never met each other by the way withoutcrying out, "What luck?"Here, indeed, is an epitome of the gentle art. Here is the spirit of it embodied in a wordand paying its respects to you with its native accent. Here you see its secret charmsunconsciously disclosed. The attraction of angling for all the ages of man, from the cradle tothe grave, lies in its uncertainty. 'Tis an affair of luck