Salmon -Fishing. 



415 



OUR ENGLISH FRIEND. 



Here is a sketch from life of 

 a jolly English gentleman, who 

 gets thoroughly disgusted every 

 time he loses a fish. He then, 

 without saying a word, quits the 

 business, puts his back against 

 a smooth tree, and takes a short 

 nap, leaving others to thrash the 

 pools. It is worthy of note that 

 one need never fear meeting 

 snobs, swells, or disagreeable 

 people fishing for salmon. The 

 air of a first-class stream seems 

 fatal to all such. 



The last of June, 1874, found 

 Mr. Lazell and the writer tired 

 out with close attention to 

 duties, and with barely frame-work enough left "to veneer a decent 

 man upon," rendezvousing at the office of Fred. Curtis, Esq., in 

 Boston, preparatory to setting out for Gaspe Basin, Canada East. 

 An idler cannot appreciate fully the enjoyment we felt in anticipa- 

 tion of several weeks entire freedom from business of any sort. 

 To get so far from civilization that no irascible inventor can find 

 you and argue his case until your head seems ready to burst ; no 

 client can bore you for hours without giving a single important fact 

 in his case; and where you will hear of no impecunious creditor's 

 paper going to protest, — is worth a large amount of preliminary toil. 

 After having, as Lazell asserted, taken an outfit sufficient for a 

 whaling voyage, we devoted still a day to getting little odds and 

 ends which Curtis's experience had taught him to provide — things 

 which seemed superfluous, and in fact almost absurd, and yet worth 

 their weight in gold when one is thirty miles from a settlement. 

 Lazell finally, getting a little out of patience, sarcastically insisted 

 upon our taking a crutch, in case any one should lose a leg. Six 

 weeks later, when my unfortunate friend, after cooling off too sud- 

 denly from a twelve-mile walk on a hot day, found himself unable to 

 use one leg, and hence was deprived of his turn at the distant best pool, 

 we turned back the laugh by suggesting the crutch which we had 



