286 Fish Stories 



time began. For a moment they gazed upon it in silence, 

 then turned in a body upon me, and I fled before an out- 

 raged people. 



I still claim to have taken the record muskallunge in this 

 particular section, but unless warmly pushed I never refer 

 to its weight, which I now disclose in confidence : it was but 

 two and three-quarter pounds! I hold the record for the 

 smallest muskallunge ever born. 



Would that I could with Macbeth 



" Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 

 Raze out the written troubles of the brain. 

 And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 

 Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 

 Which weighs upon the heart." 



