and pots, and tackle to catch eels and lobsters, and then there
wuz models of fishin' boats and vessels, and everything else under the
sun that any fisherman ever sot eyes on, from Josiah back to the
Postles, and from the Postles down to any fishin' club in 1893.

Why, if you'll believe it--and I d'no as I would blame you if you
wouldn't, it bein' a fish story, as it were--but we did see some
fish-hooks from Pompeii that had been buried 2000 years, and come out
fish-hooks after all--a good deal like them Josiah uses in Jonesville
creek.

And speakin' of old things, we see some fishes that day--the oldest in
the world; they come from Colorado--dug out of the rocks of ages ago;
they wuz covered with bone instead of scales, which showed that they had
had a pretty hard time on't.

[Illustration: They wuz covered with bone instead of scales.]

And then there wuz a big collection of nets made by the Indians from
seal sinew, seal-skin braided, roots of willow tree, and whalebone.

Of these last it took four men three weeks to make one, and two of these
wuz gin in exchange for a jug of molasses to make rum with.

A shame and a disgrace! No savage would have cheated so--no, it takes a
white man to do that.

And we see artificial flies so nateral that a spider would go to weavin'
a net to catch it.

And artificial grasshoppers, and crickets, and frogs, and little
artificial minney fish made of metal, glass, pearl, and rubber. Why, if
I had seen one of 'em in the brook that runs through our paster, I
should have been tempted to have bent a pin, and take some weltin' cord
out of my pocket and go to fishin' for it.

And if they fooled me, who am often called very wise, what would you
think of their foolin' a fish, who hain't got any bump of wisdom on
their heads?

And then there wuz trollin' spoons of all kinds and shapes, in all kinds
of metal, and trollin' squids--I'd never hearn of that name
before--squid! but they had 'em of all kinds; and tackle boxes, and
floats, and landin' nets, and gaff hooks; there is sunthin' else I never
hearn on--gaff hooks! and snells, and gimps, and spinners.

Why, I'd never hearn on 'em, and Josiah hadn't either, though he acted
dretful knowin', and put on a face of extreme enjoyment and
appreciation. And he sez, "How a man duz enjoy seein' such things that
he's ust to and knows all about!"

And I sez, "What do you do with squids, anyway, or gaffs, or snells?"

"Why," sez he, "I shou