488 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
now a few faint surges which bent the rod slightly. There! 
the flash of his gleaming side darts up the blue wave! now 
he has waked up! Tug! splash! whiz—there he goes bound- 
ing clear out of water on the taut line! Steady! steady! 
George is ready with the gaff. Now he rises again—there, 
he has it! Floundering over our feet lays a beautiful two- 
pound laker ! 
“No great shakes after all, Master George—but ah! what 
a lovely creature it is. Here, let me look at him well before 
his glorious colors fade. See his long gracefully tapering 
body; see the dark greenish purple of his richly marbled 
back, how it lightens quickly down his side, like silver 
burnished bronze; and then those rows of spots so regularly 
placed along it—the two outside of yellow, like gold drops, 
that down the middle of small carbuncles! There! there! 
the splendors are fading already !”” 
Beautiful dweller of the dark blue waters, farewell until 
we meet, again at the dinner table! Ah, Piscator! Piscator ! 
my hapless friend! you perceive the jealous Deities of the 
lake have visited an austere judgment upon you in permitting 
to me alone the “spoila opima’” of the excursion, can you 
not perceive the reason ? 
Piscator—“ To rebuke your want of faith and wishes on 
their behalf this day, I suppose !” 
Ego— Infatuated! can you not feel that it has been to 
punish your presumption in wishing you had flies—when 
George, our: oracle and their High Priest, had already 
revealed to you that they would only take living shiners, 
and were not to be fooled by mimic monsters of wool and 
feathers! you shamefully discredited their sagacity thereby!” 
Piscator—with suspended nostrils and lightning in his eye 
—‘Pshaw, nonsense! I shall take a trout greater than five 
of thine before we reach yonder shore !” 
Ego—compassionately—“ Vain man !” 
. Again we ‘glided off, across and about, around and around 
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