CHAPTER XXXVIII 



THE UNINTELLIGENCE OF FISHES 



NE hot day I had waded out from the long dead 

 coral barrier to some coral heads and was stand- 

 ing, knee-deep, with my boatman, one " Bob " 

 of happy memory, trying to lure a big barracuda, 

 which he told me " hung out around there." 



Bob had supplied the bait with his cast-net — a living silver 

 mullet — and with a slender line, a leader of copper wire 

 attached to a small hook, I had ideal tackle for the game, 

 assuming one was trying to " fish like a gentleman." 



Walton said "All that be lovers of virtue ... be 

 quiet and go a-angling," and doubtless all gentlemen love 

 virtue, if they do not personify it in themselves, and to 

 angle like a gentleman is to give the fish every advantage, 

 a sentiment, sad to relate, in which Bob had no sympathy; 

 in fact, he had decided and emphatic adverse opinions on the 

 subject. 



I did not at first hook the big one, but a smaller fish, one 

 of about ten pounds, and on the slender rod it gave me so 

 splendid a battle that, having a sentimental streak in me 

 somewhere, I began to arrive at the conclusion that so brave 

 a fighter had the right to live to fight another day, and so 

 forthwith began to manoeuver that it might escape, and ap- 

 pear to do so, owing to my lack of skill ; but Bob, a keen, dis- 

 cerning, silent man, fell upon the scheme. 



" Boss," he said, jamming his long grain pole into the 

 sand, " I reckon you're a right smart fisherman with that 

 toggery, but there ain't a Conch kid over yander five year 

 ole, but kin play a barracuda better'n that. If you want to 



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