76 FLY-FISHING IN MAINE LAKES. 



a greater exertion of the wounded fowl would take 

 her just beyond my reach. Suddenly, to my great 

 surprise, but evidently not to John's, whose loud 

 guffaws reached my ears, the poor lame creature 

 spread its wings, and, " swift as an arrow from an 

 archer's bow," sped away from me, and was soon 

 lost to sight in the abundant foliage. 



I don't know just how I felt when I reached the 

 buckboard on the home stretch. I am unable to 

 describe just how a man does feel when he appre- 

 ciates that he has been sold : comment, however, is 

 unnecessary probably " you know how it is, your- 

 self." 



And why should his best friend, and the wife of 

 his bosom, join with a gray-haired sire in endeav- 

 oring to outdo each other in hilarity, when only 

 laziness kept the two former from falling into the 

 same trap ? Such, I am sorry to say, was the fact ; 

 and when I now refer to it, as an incident of the 

 past, to one sitting beside me, poring over " The 

 Newcomes," all the satisfaction I get is 



"You were pretty well sold, weren't you? " As 

 if she, "poor thing," didn't fondly expect partridge 

 that night for supper ! 



I do not propose to argue upon the reasoning 

 faculties of the species in general, or my individual 

 partridge, and have only stated a fact, which, to 



