The Tarpon 243 
in which he swore to the double weight, the 
evident fact that he convinced himself that he 
was right, were all delightful features in these 
fishing days when records were not thought of. 
I once caught with his aid a three-hundred-and- 
fifty-pound jewfish and frequently told the story. 
After several years I met Billy, and in his pres- 
ence related the experience; but when I men- 
tioned the weight, his face assumed an expression 
of surprise. “Why, sir,” he said, “you forget, 
sir, that I weighed that fish, and it weighed five 
hundred pounds, sir,” this so seriously that no 
one could hold out against it; doubtless it was 
five hundred pounds, and I was mistaken. This 
boatman was an Irishman, a second Paddy Farrell 
of Kinsale, whose angling lines have made John 
Lander famous in the annals of angling poetry. 
You will remember that Paddy thus writes to 
his friend Thady Mullowny and beseeches him 
to come down and try the fish of Kinsale, send- 
ing him a hake through the mail as a sample 
of the big fish then biting: — 
“We've a choice set of books for the student who wise is, 
The eel of true science to seize by the tail ; 
At all seasons a skate you can have where no ice is, 
Or a sinecure plaice you may get at Kinsale.” 
