50 Tarpon Fishing in Florida. 



He came to the point at once : " There is something, sar, we 

 thought you did not understand, sar. We get 3^ dollars a day, if 

 we do not fish at night, sar. When we fish at night we get 4^- 

 dollars a day, sar. We thought you might net understand that, 

 sar." His manner during the first part of his explanation was 

 full of reproach, and during the second, when he saw we did not 

 quite catch on, almost minatory. 



We told him we should o-ive him whatever was rioht, and 

 consulted our American friends, who we found were doing 

 nothing of the sort. Now L. had taken no trouble to conceal 

 the fact that he was a terrible man with a "gun," and that his 

 equanimity had on two or three occasions become seriously 

 ruffled. It is often convenient to have a well-established 

 reputation for a Berserk temperament. Whether this was the 

 cause, or whether the feel of the notes was so pleasant, I do 

 not know, but when we paid those darkies at the rate of 

 3^ dollars a day, they forgot even to demand a tip, and 

 departed as merry as the proverbial sandboys. This incident 

 we afterwards learnt was due to the fact that a rich yacht owner, 

 who had not perhaps objected to being regarded as an in- 

 exhaustible gold mine, had been fishing in these waters just 

 before our arrival. Close to us on the shore were two or three 

 tents, inhabited by some darkies who used to catch our bait. 

 Here there were none of those little cigar-shaped fish which 

 made such excellent bait in Mexico. We used a fish much more 

 like an ordinary mullet about 8 inches long. The scales were 

 scraped off, and each fish provided us with four baits, two from 

 his upper and two from his lower half These were cut something 



