DRAGGING THE SEINE. 
143 
forwarded to tlie spring to be cared for by the ladies ; and 
now, as we crawled, weary and dripping, forth to dress our- 
selves, under the protecting bank, we blessed our stars that 
this " fun " was over, and that our expectant Houries had 
something more substantial on hand awaiting us than am- 
brosia. 
Our hurried toilets made as best we might, we found our 
way to the scene of anticipated reward, guided thither by 
the smell of cooking fish, which " burdened all the air " with 
an aroma far more luscious to us now in our ravenous mood 
than that of all the flowers we had crushed in our morning 
ride. 
Every one must remember, that long exposure to the 
effects of cold water is apt to provoke a most unpoetical ap- 
petite. Ah ! how genial was the merry greeting we received 
— how romantic seemed the flushed cheeks of our cooking 
belles, and when fairly seated on the green sod for our table, 
how far more ethereal seemed their light forms than the Pa- 
gan Houries, as partly enwreathed in the smoke of Jim's 
great fire, they received from his lordly hand the steaming 
dishes, and bore them with divinest smiles, and fingers rose- 
tipped, like those of so many auroras, by the heat, to place 
them before us ! Ah ! tell it not to heathens what a Para- 
dise was thus made for us of that scene, or all Christendom 
will surely be in danger from overrunning hordes of Infidels 
seeking to realize this supremest mundane bliss — the Dinner 
at a Fish Fry ! 
