y largest bass from the boat to sit for his picture
in a little basin in the rock under the spring. After he had floundered
himself into a comparatively rational and quiet condition, much after the
fashion of a gentleman reluctant to have his portrait taken under the
auspices of the police, I succeeded in committing him to paper. He was a
handsome fish, and eminently deserving of the distinction thus conferred
upon him.

Sleeping in the grass on a summer afternoon is a bucolic luxury I never
fully appreciated. When I stirred up my friend he was red, perspirational
and full of lively entomological suspicions. He slapped the legs of his
pantaloons vigorously in spots, moved his arms uneasily, took off his
shirt-collar and implored me to look down his back.

"There's nothing there," I reported. "I know how it is myself: a fellow
always feels that way when he goes to sleep in the grass."

"Any woodticks here?" he asked.

"Begorra! plenty," said Mr. McGrath, sitting up. "They et a child," he
added with perfect seriousness of manner, "down here below last summer."
McGrath's eyes twinkled when my friend began to talk of peeling off and
jumping into the river after a general search. He was finally reassured,
and we started out. We had even better sport than in the morning, and
accumulated a splendid string of fish each. On the way down we passed two
boats in which were some gentlemen, evidently foreigners, engaged in
throwing flies with apparently the same results that we had attained in the
morning.

"Do you know who those people are?" I asked McGrath.

"I dunno, sorr," said he, "but I think they are from one of the legations
at Washington. They come up for a day's fishin' all along of the illigant
fishin' a party from the same place had one day last week I suppose;" and
he smiled.

"How was that, McGrath?"

"It wor last week, sorr; and I wor up the river be meself, an' I had thirty
illigant fish thrailin' undher the boat comin' down. It wor just where they
are I seen two boats full of gintlemen, an' I dhropped alongside. They wor
swells, sure. They had patint rods, an' patint reels, an' patint flies, an'
patint boots, an' patint coats, an' patint hats, an' the divil knows what.
Bedad! they wor so fine that sez I to meself, sez I, 'Bedad! if I wor a
bass I'd say, "Gintlemen, don't go to no throuble on my account: I'll git
into the boat this minit."'--'Been fishin', me man?' sez one of them to me.
'Sorra much, yer hono