OF GRAYLINGS, LARGE AND SMALL 237 

 in those spots when I am dead. I think they will 

 be the cause of my death, for they irritate me 

 excessively, and nothing shortens a man's life like 

 constant worry. 



The little graylings (as deficient in bowels of 

 compassion as they are in the thyroid department) 

 will not care. They will go on rising and feeding 

 and fooling about, pretending to be large fishes, 

 just as happily, just as stupidly, though I am not 

 there to be maddened by them. They will never 

 give me a thought in my cold grave, where they 

 will have placed me. They have no thoughts. 



There is a pool on this river. We call it the 

 Island Pool. It is very deep and I have been 

 frightened by the fishes that I have seen in it. 

 The little graylings are not frightened by them. 

 They have not brains enough to be frightened by 

 anything. Not even by me. They rise eter- 

 nally in this pool. The water and trees are so 

 arranged that it is impossible to tell from below 

 what manner of fish has caused any given break 

 in the surface. The little graylings know this. 

 They have lived so long in this pool that they 

 have managed to acquire this one piece of know- 

 ledge. It moulds their whole existence. Morning, 

 afternoon, and evening (and at night for all I 

 know) they rise and rise in the hope that I shall 

 see them and cast to them. They rise at nothing 



