ung him into the boat. Again there was the flopping and the riot,
and Billy screeching, "Kill him, sir!--kill him, sir!--or he'll be off
out o' my hands!" In proper time the fish _was_ killed and shown up in
triumph, and the imposture completed.

And now Furlong began to experience that peculiar longing for catching a
fish, which always possesses men who see fish taken by others; and the
desire to have a salmon of his own killing induced him to remain on the
river. In the long intervals of idleness which occurred between the
occasional hooking up of the salmon, which Murphy _did_ every now and
then, Furlong _would be talking_ about business to Dick Dawson, so that
they had not been very long on the water until Dick became enlightened
on some more very important points connected with the election. Murphy
now pushed his boat on towards the shore.

"You're not going yet?" said the anxious fisherman;--"_do_ wait till I
catch a fish!"

"Certainly," said Murphy: "I'm only going to put Billy ashore, and send
home what we've already caught. Mrs. O'Grady is passionately fond of
salmon."

Billy was landed, and a large basket in which the salmon had been
brought down to the boat, was landed also--_empty_; and Murphy, lifting
the basket as if it contained a considerable weight, placed it on
Billy's head, and the sly young rascal bent beneath it, as if all the
fish Murphy had pretended to take were really in it; and he went on his
homeward way, with a tottering step, as if the load were too much for
him.

"That boy," said Furlong, "will never be able to cawwy all those fish to
the house."

"Oh, they won't be too much for him," said Dick. "Curse the fish! I
wish they'd bite. That thief, Murphy, has had all the sport; but he's
the best fisherman in the county, I'll own that."

The two boats all this time had been drifting down the river, and on
opening a new reach of the stream, a somewhat extraordinary scene of
fishing presented itself. It was not like Murphy's fishing, the result
of a fertile invention, but the consequence of the evil destiny which
presided over all the proceedings of Handy Andy. The fishing-party in
the boats beheld another fishing-party on shore, with this difference
in the nature of what they sought to catch, that while they in the
boats were looking for salmon, those on shore were seeking for a
post-chaise; and as about a third part of a vehicle so called was
apparent above the water, Furlong exclaime