346 TUBBER TURNER. 



us : what would it be without those eighteen 

 or twenty trout fishers, each party grouped 

 about its own rock in such picturesque atti- 

 tudes?" 



" Yery much better than with them," said 

 the Captain, who, unperceived, had just ar- 

 rived at the rendezvous from Belleek, bring- 

 ing with him the supplies for luncheon. 

 " Very much better than with them. Hector 

 himself did not work more harm to the fish- 

 ing than is done by those scamps in their 

 constant and daily mischief. Look at them: 

 there are twenty here that we can see, and 

 at least fifty more of them between this and 

 Ballyshannon that we cannot see, and every 

 dirty spalpeen of them all will not have less 

 than twenty or thirty Jenkins strung by the 

 gills on a withey branch or a platted rush ; 

 and what are these Jenkins but young sal- 

 mon? Why every single scamp of your 

 picturesque ornaments — confound them all ! 

 — destroys more salmon in one day than our 

 whole party does in a week. Just multiply 

 thirty, which is about the average daily de- 

 struction of one boy, by the number of boys 

 on the river, and that again by the number 

 of days in the season, allowing twice the 



