"You probably won't believe me," began Muhl- 

 hausen when he was interupted by a sepulchral voice, 

 "You've SAID something!" 



"It's a fact just the same, and if the eight black 

 bass were alive I could prove it by exhibiting them. 

 It was this way, I was spending the summer up in New 

 York State, " 



"What place?" came the interruption. 



"Never mind the place, it isn't on the map. You 

 have to go in by stage and I forget the name anyway. 

 It's a queer Indian name, all full of g's and c's. You 

 couldn't pronounce it if I spelled it for you. Well, 

 anyway, I took a small cottage up on the top of a 

 hill opposite a big estate where an ugly cuss lived 

 who had a lake on his place, and this lake was full of 

 black bass, but this chap was so blamed selfish he 

 wouldn't let anybody fish there but just himself. Queer 

 how selfish some people are. 



"Well, I decided I was going to get some of those 

 bass. It took me a long time to figure it out, but I 

 finally did it. This lake was in a little valley just at 

 the foot of the hill opposite my front porch, may~be 

 about half a mile away. I went to work and in two 

 days I had made one of those Blue Hill box kites 

 such as Arthur Rotch used to fly when he was making 

 tests of air curents up at Blue Hill Massachusetts. 

 Rotch is dead now or I'd ask him to tell you the 

 shape of the kite. Anyway, I built the kite, and 

 underneath it I rigged a little pulley and ran through 

 this pulley another string, separate from the one 

 controlling the kite. On the end of it I fastened a 

 bass hook with a sinker heavy enough to pull the 

 string down to the water. Would you believe me, " 



123 



