ot a fast color--long before night it was
peeling off in long, painful strips.

Suppose you do catch something! You cast and cast, sometimes burying
your hook in submerged debris and sometimes in tender portions of your
own person. After a while you land a fish; but a fish in a boat is
rarely so attractive as he was in a book. One of the drawbacks about a
fish is that he becomes dead so soon--and so thoroughly.

I have been speaking thus far of river fishing. I would not undertake to
describe at length the joys of brook fishing, because I tried it only
once. Once was indeed sufficient, not to say ample. On this occasion I
was chaperoned by an old, experienced brook fisherman. I was astonished
when I got my first view of the stream. It seemed to me no more than a
trickle of moisture over a bed of boulders--a gentle perspiration
coursing down the face of Nature, as it were. Any time they tapped a
patient for dropsy up that creek there would be a destructive freshet, I
judged; but, as it developed, this brook was deceptive--it was full of
deep, cold holes. I found all these holes.

I didn't miss a single one. While I was finding them and then crawling
out of them, my companion was catching fish. He caught quite a number,
some of them being nearly three inches long. They were speckled and had
rudimentary gills and suggestions of fins, and he said they were brook
trout--and I presume they were; but if they had been larger they would
have been sardines. You cannot deceive me regarding the varieties of
fish that come in cans. I would say that the best way to land a brook
trout is to go to a restaurant and order one from a waiter in whom you
have confidence. In that way you will avoid those deep holes.

Nor have I ever shone as a huntsman. If the shadowy roeshad is not for
me neither is her cousin, the buxom roebuck. Nor do I think I will ever
go in for mountain-climbing as a steady thing, having tried it. Poets
are fond of dwelling upon the beauties of the everlasting hills,
swimming in purple and gold--but no poet ever climbed one. If he ever
did he would quit boosting and start knocking. I was induced to scale a
large mountain in the northern part of New York. It belonged to the
state; and, like so many other things the state undertakes to run, it
was neglected. No effort whatever had been made to make it cozy and
comfortable for the citizen. It was one of those mountains that from a
distance look smooth and gentle of asc