TALES OF FISHES 



me they evinced no fear whatever. But no bait, 

 natural or artificial, that I could discover, tempted 

 them to bite. This roused my cantankerous spirit 

 to catch some of those little fish or else fall inesti- 

 mably in my own regard. I noted that whenever I 

 cast over 'the school it disintegrated. A circle wi- 

 dened from the center, and where had been a black 

 mass of fish was only sand. But as my hook settled to 

 the bottom the dark circle narrowed and closed until 

 the school was densely packed as before. Where- 

 upon I tied several of the tiny hooks together with 

 a bit of lead, and, casting that out, I waited till 

 all was black around my line, then I jerked. I 

 snagged one of the little fish and found him to be 

 a beautiful, silvery, flat-sided shiner of unknown 

 species to me. Every cast I made thereafter caught 

 one of them. And they were as good to eat as a 

 sardine and better than a mullet. 



My English comrade, C, sometimes went with 

 me, and when he did go, the interest and kindly 

 curiosity and pleasure upon his face were a constant 

 source of delight to me. I knew that I was as new 

 a species to him as the little fish were to me. But 

 C. had become so nearly a perfectly educated man 

 that nothing surprised him, nothing made him won- 

 der. He sympathized, he understood, he could put 

 himself in the place of another. What worried me, 

 however, was the simple fact that he did not care 

 to fish or shoot for the so-called sport of either. I 

 think my education on a higher plane began at Ala- 

 cranes, in the society of that lonely Englishman. 

 Somehow I have gravitated toward the men who 

 have been good for me. 



16 



