SERGEANT FRANK NEAV1LLE. 257 



again, when I can do it without wetting you. Every 

 man, woman and child in Potosi knows about that upset 

 of the boat, and that's enough. I don't care about it 

 since I said I was sorry, but all winter, while you were 

 away, he would grin as he passed me and quote from 

 Byron : 



'Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell- 

 Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave; 



Then some leap'd overboard with fearful yell, 

 As eager to anticipate their grave.' 



"He used to spout that in school, and he thought it 

 would annoy me, but it didn't well, not as much as he 

 thought it did." 



Frank was more sensitive to Henry's exasperating 

 nagging than he would own. It was not so much 

 Henry's quotation from "Don Juan" as the "grin" which 

 accompanied it, and by constant repetition Frank had 

 become sensitive, as "the touched needle trembles at the 

 pole," and this sort of thing is not conducive to con- 

 genial fishing. I told Frank that Henry would find 

 some other outlet for his humor. When Henry came 

 back with some minnows, after we had landed, I took 

 him one side, and Frank's peace of mind about the upset 

 was undisturbed afterward. 



We caught some minnows and skittered for pike, or 

 "pickerel," as we called them in New York, and took six 

 or seven that day fish that would weigh from three to 

 six pounds. We had no reels we weren't up to that 

 in those days but we had a ring on the top of the rod, 

 and gave line or hauled in through it. Once Frank 

 struck a big one. He yelled: "Come and help me! 

 He'll get away! The line is cutting my hand," etc., and 



