im in
yerself, sorr: ye'll niver lay it at my door that the first fish hooked
wasn't brought in."

I didn't need any instructions, and as the fish ran for a rock some
distance off, I brought him up sharply, and he jumped again as wickedly as
he could full three feet out of the water, and came straight toward us with
a rush. It was no use trying, I couldn't reel up quick enough, and he was
under the eddy at our feet before I had one-third of the line in.
Fortunately, he was securely hooked, and there was no drop out from the
slacking of the line. He was in about twelve feet of water, and as I
brought the line taut on him again he went off down stream as fast as ever.
I had the current full against him this time, and I brought him steadily up
through it, and held him well in hand. I swept him around in front of Mr.
McGrath's landing-net, but he shied off so quickly that I thought he would
break the line. Away down he went as stiffly and stubbornly as possible,
and there he lodged, rubbing his nose against a rock and trying to get rid
of the hook. Half a dozen times I dislodged him and brought him up, but he
was so wild and strong I did not dare to force him in. At last he made a
dash for the ripple, and I gave him a quick turn, and as he struck out of
it Mr. McGrath had his landing-net under him in a twinkling, and he was out
kicking on the rock. He weighed four pounds six ounces, and furnished
conclusive evidence that a bass of that weight can give a great deal of
very agreeable trouble before he will consent to leave his element.

"What was it," said I, "that you called him when you struck him just now?"

"What did I call him, sorr? A mikroptheros, sorr."

"And for Goodness' sake, McGrath, what is a mikroptheros?"

"Begorra! that's what it is," said Mr. McGrath, throwing the bass overboard
to swim at the end of its leathern thong.

"Well!" said I in amazement. "I never heard such a name as that for a fish
in all my life!--a mikroptheros!"

"Divil a more or less!" said Mr. McGrath decidedly. "The Fish Commissioner
wor up here last week, an' sez he to me, sez he, 'It's a mikroptheros, so
it is.'--'What's that?' sez I.--'That!' sez he; and he slaps him into an
illigant glass bottle of sperrits, as I thought he was goin' to say to me,
'McGrath, have ye a mouth on ye?' an' I as dhry as if I'd et red herrin's
for a week. 'Yis,' sez he to me, 'that's the right name of him;' and wid
that he writes it on a tag, and he send