14:4: MEN / HAVE FISHED WITH. 



by using them in place of the salt-water product. George 

 offered to eat one if we would each eat another, but the 

 German was mean enough to ask : "Oof Stefe dinks dose 

 dings was so goot we oysders, vy don'd he ede 'em some 

 more?" A yell turned the conversation; George had 

 thrown his line back in the wrong direction, and the hook 

 took Loeser in the ear, and tore a hole big enough to let 

 it be taken out easily. Years afterward, at a dinner of 

 the Ichthyophagous Club, we had a bisque or some other 

 preparation of Unios fixed up by the chef of one of New 

 York's crack hotels, and I tasted it, with a thought run- 

 ning back to an early day on the Normanskill. After 

 tasting it I looked around to see how the rest enjoyed 

 it. Frank Endicott made a show of taking frequent 

 spoonfuls, but his plate seemed as full as ever. Mr. E. 

 G. Blackford tasted it and said: "That is very fine," but 

 somehow let it go at that; and when the waiter removed 

 his plate you could not miss what had been eaten. No 

 doubt the mussels are good, but you've got to learn to 

 like 'em. I never persevered in this direction. As bait 

 that day they took a few fish, but the verdict of the boys 

 was that they preferred the old reliable angle worm. 



Down in the lower end of Albany is a portion called 

 Bethlehem, and on the river road was the Abbey, a noted 

 road-house a couple of miles below the city. An Eng- 

 lish sportsman named Kenneth King lived in Bethlehem, 

 and the Abbey was kept by another English shooting 

 man named Sheldrick, who got up pigeon shoots, and 

 we boys used to attend them. At these affairs we used 

 to make matches to shoot at ten birds each, the loser to 

 pay for and the winner to have them. One day after 

 the shooting was done Martin said to me: "We are not 

 going to shoot any more because there are not enough 

 pigeons for a match, but as your gun is loaded and there 



