134 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



May. I assert, Doctor Nathan Swiveltop, that 

 those trout of mine, you so wilfully and criminally 

 abandoned, and which you now most slanderously hold 

 up to ridicule, were, one and all of them, large and 

 delectable fish that they weighed in general from two 

 to three pounds, although, at the same time, I will to 

 any one, save yourself, allow that five or six of the 

 smallest did not greatly exceed nineteen or twenty 

 ounces. 



Swivel. Good ! excellent ! bravo ! well-done ! 

 hurra ! and thou wouldest have forced me, Bill, to 

 carry thy pannier, containing five dozen such fish (far 

 beyond a hundred weight, mark you), for the pure sake 

 of displaying thy prowess to the ignorant inmates of a 

 country inn, and without any regard or fellow-feeling for 

 my fatigue and endurance ? Methinks I did well to 

 rid me of such a load ! Egad, Bill, thou art a vile com- 

 puter and wretched arithmetician. This paltry fabric of 

 willows, yclept thy creel, may barely contain a stone- 

 weight of fish, yet, to thy fable-making fancy, 'twould 

 conceal leviathans. ! how thou stretchest the borders 

 of nature to make room for unheard-of marvels ! 



May. Hold thy prating, Nathan Swiveltop, and 

 anger me not. 



Swivel. Thy wrath is pleasant, Bill pleasant as 

 comedy. I love thee when fired, and hate thee when 

 cool. I love all passionate men. The even-tempered, 

 and what some term the amiable, are either villains, 

 cunning, selfish, and avaricious otherwise they are 



