392 FACTS AND INFERENCES, GRAVE AND GAY. 



himself a single-minded man, as full of truth as two eggs 

 — we rang the bell, and desired an agreeable looking 

 footman " to please to pick " from the different panniers 

 a few of the largest trouts which had been captured 

 during that blessed day. He speedily returned, bearing 

 a splendid assiette of China's purest clay — our friend is 

 rather proud of his eastern ware, and his old housekeeper 

 knows that failing well — with slant-eyed Mandarins, their 

 pipe in hand, small-footed damsels drinking from cups 

 that cheer but not inebriate, bridges high in air, and 

 swallows and summer-houses mingling together in the 

 clouds ; but for the " take of trouts," oh ! what a falling- 

 off was there, my countrymen ! Where were the couple- 

 of -pounders now ? There were a few of three-quarters of 

 a pound, (and pretty fish these same,) ascertained, however, 

 by a red thread through their gills, to have been caught 

 by a highly respectable and very round-faced clergyman 

 of the Episcopal persuasion, who, silent though not unseen, 

 was sipping some light summer tipple, and holding the 

 long slender stalk of a rather large yet delicate thin-edged 

 glass so neatly in his small white hand, that we had 

 known for several hours he was an angler ; thus proving 

 how a naturalist, by the observance of a seemingly unim- 

 portant attribute of the outer man, may throw a flood of 

 light upon his prevailing character and disposition. It 

 did not appear, however, that the braggart himself could 



