FOREWORD 



Teach us not only how to catch the elusive citizens 

 of the blue, but lead us into communion with them so 

 that we can do more than merely dangle them on a 

 hunk of string and fry them in a pan. We want to 

 civilize them and assimilate them so that we can sell 

 them stock in new moving-picture companies and lead 

 them by the flipper to walks of our own making 

 where we would unfold to them the mysteries of 

 how to blow a safe or carry an election. 



Before you lies the chance of being the uplifter of 

 the fish. You alone may play the famous white 

 man's part in unfolding before the gullible children 

 of the wet recesses the manna of the earth suf- 

 frage, booze, evangelism, advanced thinking, Robert 

 W. Chambers, five-card stud, the bunny hug, nude 

 films, Democratic victories, tax-dodging, taxi-dodg- 

 ing there's no end to what a fish doesn't know and 

 what we members in good standing of the order of 

 brotherly love are hep to. 



Therefore, I beseech you, Dixie, do not again 

 bend your superior talents to the paltry and sordid 

 pursuit of telling how to nab a fish for breakfast; 

 take your stylus well in hand and write us a guide- 

 book on how to teach a fish to take a joke so that 

 we may live long and increase our percentage. 



With every good wish, always, 



Your friend the piscatorial ignoramus, 



JACK LAIT. 



