Not Even a Smoke 



tragedies are like that. The golf nut does a hole in 

 eight strokes and twenty minutes, and then you find 

 out he shot the next in two. 



Well, just for contrast, listen to my tale of woe. I 

 was fly-fishing for the gamy pollock from a rocky point 

 somewhere in Maine. It was about five a. m. Little 

 fellers of one to two pounds were plentiful and bold, 

 so presently I became rather careless whether the next 

 one dropped the hook or came in to have it taken out. 

 I hooked one of a pound and a half or so and let him 

 run around. Suddenly he began to jump, which pol- 

 lock never do after the strike. As I drew him close 

 to the rock, there rose from the sandy bottom a great 

 striped bass, as long as my leg, and seizing my little 

 pollock, he started immediately for Kennebunk, Port- 

 land, and points N by E 54 W. I had a five-ounce 

 rod. I had about twenty-five yards of old silk line, 

 rotted in salt water. Did I stop that fish ? I did not. 

 Alas, and oh h 1, masters, I did lose her. 



Was that sad? Was that grievous? Was that, in 

 short, tragic? Nay, not so much. Listen. When I 

 had exhausted my stock of audible wailing for the de- 

 parted I relaxed, limp as a dead worm, on a convenient 

 bed of mussels, feeling a great need for a consoling 

 smoke. But there was no pipe in my pockets. Nor 

 any tobacco. And I was two miles from home, home ! 



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