126 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



May. I assert, Doctor Nathan Swiveltop, that 

 those trout of mine, you so wilfully and criminally 

 abandoned, and which you now most slanderously 

 hold up to ridicule, were, one and all of them, large 

 and delectable fish that they weighed in general 

 from two to three pounds, although, at the same 

 time, I will to any one, save yourself, allow that 

 five or six of the smallest did not greatly exceed 

 nineteen or twenty ounces. 



Swivel. Good ! excellent! bravo ! well-done! 

 . hurra! and thou wouldesthave forced me, Bill, 

 to carry thy pannier, containing five dozen such fish 

 (far beyond a hundred weight, mark you), for the 

 pure sake of displaying thy prowess to the ignorant 

 inmates of a country inn, and without any regard 

 or fellow-feeling for my fatigue and endurance ? 

 Methinks I did well to rid me of such a load! 

 Egad, Bill, thou art a vile computer and wretched 

 arithmetician. This paltry fabric of willows, yclept 

 thy creel, may barely contain a stone-weight of 

 fish, yet, to thy fable-making fancy, 'twould conceal 

 leviathans. O! how thou stretchest the borders of 

 nature to make room for unheard-of marvels ! 



May. Hold thy prating, Nathan Swiveltop, and 

 anger me not. 



Swivel. Thy wrath is pleasant, Bill pleasant as 

 comedy. I love thee when fired, and hate thee 

 when cool. I love all passionate men. The even- 

 tempered, and what some term the amiable, are 

 either villains, cunning, selfish, and avaricious 



