62 WHAT I HAVE SEEN WHILE FISHING 



their toilet, and from which they give out songs 

 that blend with the music of wild waves. 



Paddy and Billy, too, were thirsty. The first- 

 named announced the fact by spitting on his hands, 

 looking at the result, and then saying, "Be jabers, 

 it's silver pieces I'm for wasting on these bits of 

 timber." Paddy, as may be seen by his photo, is a 

 very short man ; yet his was the longest drink I 

 ever saw. He was only in the middle of it when 

 Billy, unable to control himself, exclaimed, " Arrah, 

 be aisy, Paddy ; it's meself that's on fire within and 

 without ! " We all had a drink, and, could you 

 have seen my nose, you would probably have 

 thought, " Yes, and many of them." 



At last, just as I am looking up to Seagull Spink 

 rock, made interesting and beautiful by thousands 

 of birds perched on their various niches, and by 

 other thousands that make an ever-moving curtain 

 by their incessant curving, fluttering flights, I have 

 a nibble which comes to naught. This seldom 

 happens ; there is an attractiveness in rubber 

 which almost invariably gives the fish a longing 

 for other bites until he is hooked. The tail of 

 the worm beyond the hook is long, and lends itself 

 to nibbles. 



Rubber baits remind me that, while fishing at 

 Ramsgate one November with fisherman James 

 Groombridge, I caught a cod which weighed in the 

 market scales i81b., and which I determined to 

 have cleaned, packed, and sent off at once. Groom- 



