finding him. There is only one of him alive--these world's wonders never
occur in pairs. That would cheapen them and make them commonplace.

He swam into our ken--if a mixed metaphor may be pardoned--on a train
leaving Oakland for the East. We were sitting in the club car--half a
dozen or so of us--when he drifted along. At first look no one would
have suspected him of being so gifted a creature as he proved himself to
be. He was a round, short, tub-shaped man, with a button nose, and a
double chin that ran all the way round and lapped over at the back. But,
though his appearance was deceiving, anybody could tell with half an
eye that he excelled in extemporaneous conversation. Right off he began
shadow-boxing and sparring about, waiting for an opening. In a minute he
got it.

The tall man with the long face and the stiff white pompadour, who
looked like a patent toothbrush, gave him his chance. The tall man
happened to look out of the car window and see in an inlet a fleet of
beached fishing boats, and he remarked on their picturesqueness. That
was the cue.

"Speaking of fishing," said the button-nosed man, "I'll tell you people
something that'll maybe interest you. You may not believe it, either, me
being a stranger to you; but it's the Gospel truth or I wouldn't be
sitting here a-telling it. I reckon I've done more fishing in my day and
more different kinds of fishing than any man alive. I come originally
from a prime fishing state--Michigan--and I've lived in Colorado and
Montana and Oregon and all the other good fishing states out West. But,
take it from me, friends, California is the best fishing state there is.
Yes, sir; when it comes to fishing, old California lays it over 'em
all--she takes the rag right off the bush! I'm the one that oughter know
because I've fished her from end to end and crossways--sea fishing,
creek fishing, lake fishing and all.

"Down at Catalina they'll tell you, if you ask 'em, that I'm the man
that ketched the biggest tuna that ever come out of that ocean. It took
me fourteen hours and forty-five minutes to land him, and during that
time he towed me and an eighteen-foot boat, and the fellow I had along
for boatman, over forty-four miles--I measured it afterward to be
sure--and the friction of the reel spinning round wore my line down till
it wasn't no thicker in places than a cobweb. But tunas ain't my regular
specialty--trouts and basses are my special favorites; and up in the
m