IRISH LOACH-TROLLING. 13 



his suspicions. Assuming, therefore, an air of in- 

 difference, he diplomatically approached the subject 

 of his curiosity by remarking : " Well, Tom, if it 

 isn't bad manners, or making too free, might one ask 

 what you've got in the kettle ? A horn of Cruise's 

 ' Castle Billingham,' or a ' cropper ' of Jim Flanigan's 

 ' double-shot ' that never saw the face of a ganger, 

 wouldn't be a bad beginning of the day's work" 

 Quite prepared for the question, and alive to its sig- 

 nificance, Tom coolly replied : " Snipes, Paddy !" and, 

 suiting the action to the word, applied his fore-finger 

 to the point of that prominence in the " human face 

 divine," usually appealed to in responses of this kind. 

 Paddy was fairly " sold," " bothered out and out," with- 

 out a chance of making another attack on the suspected 

 " kettle." They accordingly parted good-humouredly 

 in the flash of the repartee Tom to his boat, which 

 lay higher up the lake, Pat to tend his potato-beds 

 on the hill. The latter, however, did not wholly 

 relinquish the chase, and muttered as he went along : 

 " A kettle of snipes, indeed ! Did anyone ever hear 

 of snipes in such a lardther afore ? The ould thief- 

 catcher ! I'll be even with him yet ! " and so passed on 

 to his work. Looking down occasionally from the hill- 

 side, which commanded a view of the whole lake, he saw 

 from the track and pace of Tom's boat that lie must be 

 trolling for something. But then nobody trolled, at 

 the time, for trout ; pike were fortunately few in the 



