ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 125 



pleasure to travel, after the rough bone- shaking we 

 have just had. I feel wonderfully recruited, and 

 able to perform miracles. 



Swivel. Vaunt not, Bill; but take thine own 

 creel, an' thou be'est so valour-getting. These 

 trout of thine annoy my shoulders not a little. 



May. Ha! Doctor, art thou failing at last? But 

 hand the pannier this way why, it seems to me 

 like an air-bladder! 



Swivel. So it ought, Bill, seeing its contents are 

 one and the same. 



May. What ! hast thou made away with my fish ? 

 Audacity indeed ! unexampled sacrilege ! flung what 

 I have toiled and sweated for to the base-born car- 

 rion-crows? 'Tis too much to endure meekly. 

 Doctor Swiveltop ! I abjure thy fellowship. Thou art 

 a common cateran and body-spoiler. Away! away! 

 lest I inflict the bastinado, and pommel thee into 

 shivers. 



Swivel. Most valiant May -fly! we honour thy 

 very infirmities. Be not wroth as the roused lion, 

 nor slay us in the heat of thine anger ! What to 

 thee, Bill, are a few score of fingerlings? 



May. Fingerlings ! Doctor Swiveltop ? they 

 were pounders ay, two pounders! 



Swivel. Oh ! Bill, not a two-ounce fish amongst 

 them. 'Twas an absolute sin in thee to butcher 

 such fry. Saw you not how the very swallows, 

 while thou wert swinging them out, pounced upon 

 them instead of gad-flies? 



