ON THE THAMES. 319 
took the image to his garden at all, it was chucked 
overboard again by one of the boys.” “What Goths 
these dredgermen are!” said I; “are they not, P. ?” 
“Don’t see it,” said P. . “Don’t bother me about your 
Romans and your dredgermen—— 
“ Her eyes are 
Confound it all! you’ve put the words out of my head 
again. I wish you would not disturb me when you 
see I’m thinking.” “But you must be disturbed ; 
here’s the place where the jack are. It’s no use your 
saying ‘ What a bother it is fishing !’ when you are out 
fishing. Get up and fish, you lazy poet. You'll get 
an idea for your new edition of ‘Puck on Pegasus.’ 
I shall go and try yonder back stream while you re- 
main here.” So off I went and caught nothing, of 
course, but I saw whole nurseries of little fish on the 
shallows, and was watching them to see what I could 
learn and bring as evidence in re “the-grand-turning- 
out-of-young-fish question now being argued in the 
High Court of Pisciculture.” 
A shout from the distant poet,—“ There he is! 
It’s the spoon that has done it.” “So I perceive,” I 
shouted in return; “I thought de would.” On my re- 
turn P. explained in the most kind manner that “‘the 
spoon’ was the bait he had put on his line for the 
sake of giving the jack a new sensation.” So we all 
put on spoons and fished away, but the sensation had 
