ss he had sawed off about ninety dollars' worth
of fishing knickknacks on you.

[Illustration: "EVERYTHING YOU CATCH IS SECOND-HAND"]

Let us say, then, that you have mortgaged the old home and have acquired
enough fishing tackle to last you for a whole day. Then you go forth,
always conceding that you are an amateur fisherman who fishes for fun as
distinguished from a professional fisherman who fishes for fish--and you
get into a rowboat that you undertake to pull yourself and that starts
out by weighing half a ton and gets half a ton heavier at each stroke.
You pull and pull until your spine begins to unravel at both ends, and
your palms get so full of water blisters you feel as though you were
carrying a bunch of hothouse grapes in each hand. And after going about
nine miles you unwittingly anchor off the mouth of a popular garbage
dump and everything you catch is second-hand. The sun beats down upon
you with unabated fervor and the back of your neck colors up like a
meerschaum pipe; and after about ten minutes you begin to yearn with
a great, passionate yearning for a stiff collar and some dry clothes,
and other delights of civilization.

If, on the other hand, I am being guided by an experienced angler it has
been my observation that he invariably takes me to a spot where the fish
bit greedily yesterday and will bite avariciously tomorrow, but, owing
to a series of unavoidable circumstances, are doing very little in the
biting line today. Or if by any chance they should be biting they at
once contract an intense aversion for my goods. Others may catch them as
freely as the measles, but toward me fish are never what you would call
infectious. I'm one of those immunes. Or else the person in charge
forgets to bring any bait along. This frequently happens when I am in
the party.

One day last summer I went fishing in the Savannah River, and we
traveled miles and miles to reach the fishing-ground. We found the water
there alive with fish, and anchored where they were thickest; and then
the person who was guiding the expedition discovered that he had left
the bait on the wharf. He is the most absent-minded man south of the
Ohio anyhow. In the old days before Georgia went dry he had to give up
carrying a crook-handled umbrella. He would invariably leave it hanging
on the rail. So I should have kept the bait in mind myself--but I
didn't, being engaged at the time in sun-burning a deep, radiant
magenta. However it was n