Once, and once only, they tried tricycles. Wales is not as level as a billiard-table. Towzer, careless of the picturesque, wished that it was. On tricycles, he explained, if you were not used to them, you could travel on the flat rather faster than you could walk; uphill you had to get off and shove, and downhill you were either run away with, or, if you put on the brake, the tricycle stopped, you didn't--on the contrary, you proceeded upon your journey by a series of gyrations through the air, until suddenly planted on your head in the next county but two. Besides all this it cost more to send back your tricycle by rail than a first-class ticket would have cost, whereas if you didn't send it back you were liable to be tried at the next assizes. A letter which I insert here, and which Mrs. Winthrop still keeps, for the sake, not of its melodious metre, but for the sake of auld lang syne, will give the reader some idea of the Winthrops' fishing adventures. I am inclined to think that Frank wrote it. Big, strong fellow as he was, he had a habit of constantly writing to the Mater, and I happen to know that Snap was too bad-tempered at that time to write anything. He had passed all that morning in trying to cast on a certain wooded reach. He had caught the grass; he had cracked his line like a coach-whip, and lost a score of flies by so doing; and had at last settled solemnly down to dig up with his penknife a great furze-bush on the bank which appeared to his angry imagination to rise from behind at every fly which he tried to throw. 'Aug. 12, 1874. 'DEAR MATER,--- 'Snap Hales arose, from his night's repose, In the midst of the Cambrian mountains, Where from cliff and from crag, over peat-moss and hag, The Tanat shepherds her fountains. (_Observe here the resemblance to Shelley._) 'He rolled in his tub, and tackled his grub, He booted and hatted in haste, Then said, "If you're wishing, boy Bill, to go fishing, There isn't one moment to waste." 'He strode to the brook, and with lordly look Quoth, "Now, little fish, if you're in, Let some grayling or trout just put up his snout And swallow this minnow of tin." 'As if at his wish, up bounded a fish, Gave one dubious sniffle or snuff, Thought 'It's covered with paint, I'll be hooked if it ain't, And the fellow who made it's a muff." 'Then Harold had tries with all sorts of flies, Which were brilliant, gigantic, and rare, But among them were none which resembled a "dun," So the fish were content with a stare. 'To a tree by that brook many flies took their hook, Many more were whipped off in the wind; One fixed in the nose, several more in the clothes Of that angler before and behind. 'Then his cast-line broke, and Harold spoke, Right wrathful words spoke he, "Very well! you may grin, but I'll just wade in Where there's neither briar nor tree."