ing with surprising accuracy at a spittoon, said his name was
Powell. Still nobody paid any attention to him, but the fact did not
seem to depress his spirits, for he talked straight ahead fluently and
with some vehemence:

"What are they doing for the fishery interest, any way, these
commissioners? What do they know about fishing? More'n likely when
they go out they hold the hook in their hands and let the pole float
in the water. Why, one of 'em was talking with me the other day, and
says he, 'Powell, I want the Legislature to make an appropriation for
the cultivation of canned lobsters in the Susquehanna.' 'How are you
going to do it?' says I. 'Why,' says he, 'my plan is to cross the
original lobster with some good variety of tin can, breed 'em in and
in, and then feed the animal on solder and green labels.'

"Perfect ass, of course; but I let him run along, and pretty soon he
says, 'I've just bought half a barrel of salt mackerel, which I'm
going to put in the Schuylkill. My idea,' says he, 'is to breed a
mackerel that'll be all ready soaked when you catch him. The ocean
mackerel always tastes too much of the salt. What the people want is
a fish that is fresher.' And so, you know, that immortal idiot is
actually going to dump those mackerel overboard in the hope that
they'll swim about and make themselves at home. Well, if the governor
_will_ appoint such chuckle-head commissioners, what else can you
expect?

"However, I said nothing. I wasn't going to set him up in business
with my brains and experience, and so, directly, he says to me,
'Powell, I'm now engaged in transplanting some desiccated codfish into
the Schuylkill; but it scatters too much when it gets into the
water. Now, how would it do to breed the ordinary codfish with a
sausage-chopper or a mince-meat machine? Do you think a desiccated
codfish would rise to a fly, or wouldn't you have to fish for him with
a colander?' And so he kept reeling out a jackassery like that until
directly he said, 'I'll tell you, professor, what this country needs
is a fresh-water oyster. Now, it has occurred to me that maybe the
best variety to plant would be the ordinary fried oyster. It seems to
be popular, and it has the advantage of growing without a shell.
One of the other commissioners,' so this terrific blockhead said,
'insisted on trying the experiment with the oyster that produces
tripe, so's to enable the people to catch tripe and oysters when they
go a-fishing.