HE STACKED THE CARDS ON THEM. 



DR. WILLIAM A. MANN. 



During the summer of '99, 2 of my 

 nephews and myself were spending our va- 

 cation at Spring Lake, Mich., and were 

 putting in time trying to lure the numer- 

 ous fish from their places of retirement, 

 but without much success. However, we 

 had caught a few, even if the big ones 

 were known by those familiar household 

 names of dog and cat ; and that was more 

 than 2 young men who were there from 

 Chicago could say. They had fished and 

 fished and hadn't even caught a sucker; 

 but they caught several of them later. 

 Bradley Anderson was the name of one of 

 those gentlemen, though we called him 

 Bradley Martin. 



Brad was tall and lean and awkward, 

 also extremely bashful ; but he had a little 

 of the old boy in him and was always play- 

 ing jokes on his companion, John Mar- 

 shall, who was good humored and accepted 

 the position of being made fun of. Some- 

 times he included more of us than Mar- 

 shall. 



One afternoon it had sprinkled a little, so 

 we did not go out in boats to fish, but con- 

 fined ourselves to still-fishing from the 

 dock. George and Willie, my 2 nephews, 

 and I caught a white, or silver, bass, be- 

 sides some crappies and blue gills ; and we 

 decided to try fishing after dark, with a 

 lantern hung on the side of the dock, just 

 over the water. 



After supper, by urging, we got Brad and 

 Marshall to join us. We caught a few 

 crappies at first. Then Brad got a 20 foot 

 reed casting pole and declared he was go- 

 ing to catch more fish than anybody else, 

 or even than all of us put together. A 

 yacht was tied to the dock and Brad 

 climbed out on her and sat astride the 

 boom, remarking, "I am going to charm 

 those fish. My toes are crossed, my legs 

 are crossed, my arms are crossed, my fin- 

 gers are crossed, and now I am going to 

 cross my eyes. When I get a bite, look 

 out there on the dock, for I will fling that 

 fish half way up to the house." 



After a few minutes of silence. Brad 

 gave a war whoop, uncrossed himself, and 

 grabbed his pole, which had been stuck un- 

 der his arm. 



"I've got him! Look out there!" 



There was a gleam of silver in the air 



and a dull sound back of us proved his 

 charms had worked. 



"Here, Gray, take him off and bait up." 



Gray was another one of the boys and 

 was not fishing, but was around offering 

 us all a little advice. Gray did as re- 

 quested, we supposed, but it was so dark 

 we could not tell what he did. We had no 

 lantern but the one down by the water, 

 and we were glad to keep that away from 

 us, for mosquitoes seem to like to dine 

 by a light. As Brad was getting ready for 

 more charming, several of the small boys 

 and one or 2 larger ones moved over in his 

 district to try their luck, but luck was 

 against them, and in a few moments Brad 

 had another fish, which was landed in the 

 same vigorous way as the first. 



To make a long story short, Brad, by 

 numerous changes in charms and addi- 

 tional crosses, counted his fish up to 12 

 and then decided he would quit, as 13 was 

 an unlucky number. Gray was told to 

 gather up the fish and take them to the 

 cook, so they could be cleaned and cooked 

 for breakfast. 



During the whole evening the rest of us, 

 4 or 5, had caught only 2 small crappies 

 and one silver bass. We felt rather sore 

 that Brad had outdone us so, in spite of 

 the fact that some of the others had fished 

 in his hole also. 



A little later, we quit and began to pick 

 up our fish. George suddenly said, "Look! 

 Here is a fish with its head mashed." 



"Yes," said Brad, "I stepped on that one 

 of yours when it was lying on the dock." 



His explanation was accepted, and we 

 went to the house and gave our fish in to 

 be cleaned. We had fish for breakfast, but 

 we missed several of our largest ones, and 

 wondered where they were. Brad also had 

 a large fish served, but it was untasted. 



It came out later that Brad had taken 

 out one of our fish, had hooked it well, 

 had then thrown it in the lake and pulled 

 it out as a catch, repeating the operation 

 11 times; but as the head became smashed, 

 he had landed it more gently. 



As a practical joker, Brad was a success, 

 even if he could not catch fish. When you 

 are in Chicago step into Brad's office and 

 ask him to show you his position of crosses 

 when he wants to catch fish. 



"Papa, what's the difference between an 

 amateur and a professional politician?" 

 "Oh, 2.000 to 20,000 a year." — Life. 

 364 



