126 ANGLING 



there being no programme of the dances, he, at the end of each 

 dance, consults the gods in a low sepulchral voice, who, or one 

 of them, responds in a minor key down the copper chimney 

 that it is to be a polka, the music to be interspersed with 

 whistling representing a canary attending to her young brood. 

 The whistling is certainly loud and shrill, but Mr. Hopper was 

 unable to detect either the note of the yellow songster or the 

 grateful responses of the unfledged ones. In these matters very 

 much must necessarily be left to the imagination. 



The attention of Mr. Hopper was then directed to the efforts of 

 a bucolic individual (who had unquestionably helped materially 

 to lower the level of the 36 cask), to light a twopenny cigar with 

 which he had been presented. This performance was unique and 

 well worth seeing. To begin with the old gent put about two- 

 thirds of the cigar in his mouth, so as to get a good hold, but 

 his efforts to get the lighted match near the end were quite futile, 

 and for a long time there was more fear of contact of the flame 

 with his nose than with his cigar. Eventually, after expending 

 nearly a gross of matches, the fire was lighted, and Mr. Joskin 

 negotiated a puff which closely resembled a chimney on fire. 

 How he will get home to Normanton, a village two miles from 

 Marnham, is a problem Mr. Hopper cannot even attempt to 

 solve, but he has offered his haddock line 80 yards long (used 

 by Mr. Hopper as a hauling line) to a fellow villager of the 

 old gent to aid in towing him home safely to his rural abode. 

 The dinner was a sumptuous affair. Round the festive board 

 were gathered three bobbies in blue, the carpenters, the 

 assistant ferryman, two country joskins, several fair ones, a 

 yeoman or two, a better class farmer or two, and the accordion 

 player. Mr. Hopper carved. He forbears alluding to the 

 gastronomic ability and the wonderful capacity of those round 

 the loaded table, but there was enough for all and to spare. 



During the evening songs and recitations were given, and 

 Mr. Hopper was requisitioned to give " Paudeen o' Rafferty's 

 say voyage," which Mr. Hopper gave in his best Irish. The 

 history of Paudeen is that he lived in his own cellar on the coal 

 quay in Dublin, and he went to England on a bit of an agri- 



