; boats and punts for hire, and a swimming-match just coming
off, of which all that is visible are two black heads bobbing up and
down along the middle of the stream.

"And now, _mon ami_, what do you vote for?" asks Mueller. "Boating or
fishing? or both? or neither?"

"Both, if you like--but I never caught anything in my life,"

"The pleasure of fishing, I take it," says Mueller, "is not in the fish
you catch, but in the fish you miss. The fish you catch is a poor little
wretch, worth neither the trouble of landing, cooking, nor eating; but
the fish you miss is always the finest fellow you ever saw in
your life!"

"_Allons donc_! I know, then, which of us two will have most of the
pleasure to-day," I reply, laughing. "But how about the expense?"

To which Mueller, with a noble recklessness, answers:--

"Oh, hang the expense! Here, boatman! a boat _a quatre rames_, and some
fishing-tackle--by the hour."

Now it was undoubtedly a fine sentiment this of Mueller's, and had we but
fetched my two Napoleons before starting, I should have applauded it to
the echo; but when I considered that something very nearly approaching
to a franc had already filtered out of our pockets in passing through
the fair, and that the hour of dinner was looming somewhat indefinitely
in the distance, I confess that my soul became disquieted within me.

"Don't forget, for heaven's sake," I said, "that we must keep something
for dinner!"

"My dear fellow," he replied, "I have already a tremendous appetite for
dinner--that _is_ something."

After this, I resigned myself to whatever might happen.

We then rowed up the river for about a mile beyond Courbevoie. moored
our boat to a friendly willow, put our fishing-tackle together, and
composed ourselves for the gentle excitement that waits upon the gudgeon
and the minnow.

"I haven't yet had a single nibble," said Mueller, when we had been
sitting to our work for something less than ten minutes.

"Hush!" I said. "You mustn't speak, you know."

"True--I had forgotten. I'll sing instead. Fishes, I have been told, are
fond of music.

'Fanfan, je vous aimerais bien;
Contre vous je n'ai nul caprice;
Vous etes gentil, j'en convien....'"

"Come, now!" I exclaimed pettishly, "this is really too bad. I had a
bite--a most decided bite--and if you had only kept quiet"....

"Nonsense, my dear fellow! I tell you again--and I have it on the best
authority--fishes like music. Did