OUR CLOSING DAY. 247 



*' Given is the brook at the foot of the mountains, 



Where cool, sparkling watersJspring'Tresh from the hill ; 

 Given eddies and scours, and cascades^and fountains, 



For they all rush down through the glen to the mill 

 And I live at the mill, whipping trout from the stream : 

 I followed, was hooked, and need nevermore dream." 



To the sentimental backwoodsman succeeds one who, 

 instead of a prosy conveyancer, should have been, as 

 nature intended him, something in the comic line of life. 

 He does not sing a comic song now, however, since he 

 knows he will by-and-by be called upon willy nilly to 

 repeat certain old favourites of thatulk. The truth is he 

 has for a week been preparing a string of wretched puns, 

 which he thus runs off the reel, drolly emphasising the words 

 italicised : " Gentlemen, I hope no^'one will carp at what 

 I'm about to say, or think my remarks an enc-/w<r//-ment. 

 Is it not a fact in natural history that every Jack has his 

 Gill ? It is not every acute angle-* who can keep a pike, or 

 say with \hzjudicious Hooker, 



" ' I had a bream, a whacking bream, 

 I dreamt that I had three.' 



Before sitting down I should like to~state my m-tench-ion of 

 .presenting to you, though not by any means as an eefemosy- 

 nary affair, a copy of Mrs. Barbel 's ( Dace abroad and 

 .evenings at home,' bound in gut-\& perch-z. ; also to observe 

 that the true motto for every angler is Tm a float. The 

 fact is " 



The fact was that the company would have no more 

 rubbish of this sample, though the word-torturer subsequently 

 : confided to me that his most effective abominations were 

 .unsaid. We, however the conveyancer's cheap wit must 



