.
He had not as yet hooked a swordfish.

"It's a German submarine!" he declared.

My brother's wife and the other ladies with us on board were inclined to
favor my side; at least they were sorry for the fish and said he must be
very big.

"Dan, I could tell a foul-hooked fish," I asserted, positively. "This
fellow is too alive--too limber. He doesn't sag like a dead weight."

"Well, if he's not foul-hooked, then you're all in," replied the
captain.

Cheerful acquiescence is a desirable trait in any one, especially an
angler who aspires to things, but that was left out in the ordering of
my complex disposition. However, to get angry makes a man fight harder,
and so it was with me.

At the end of five hours Dan suggested putting the harness on me. This
contrivance, by the way, is a thing of straps and buckles, and its use
is to fit over an angler's shoulders and to snap on the rod. It helps
him lift the fish, puts his shoulders more into play, rests his arms.
But I had never worn one. I was afraid of it.

"Suppose he pulls me overboard, with that on!" I exclaimed. "He'll drown
me!"

"We'll hold on to you," replied Dan, cheerily, as he strapped it around
me.

Later it turned out that I had exactly the right view concerning this
harness, for Dustin Farnum was nearly pulled overboard and--But I have
not space for that story here. My brother Rome wants to write that
story, anyhow, because it is so funny, he says.

On the other hand, the fact soon manifested itself to me that I could
lift a great deal more with said harness to help. The big fish began to
come nearer and also he began to get mad. Here I forgot the pain in my
hands. I grew enthusiastic. And foolishly I bragged. Then I lifted so
hard that I cracked the great Conroy rod.

Dan threw up his hands. He quit, same as he quit the first day out, when
I hooked the broadbill and the reel froze.

"Disqualified fish, even if you ketch him--which you won't," he said,
dejectedly.

"Crack goes thirty-five dollars!" exclaimed my brother. "Sure is funny,
brother, how you can decimate good money into the general atmosphere!"

If there really is anything fine in the fighting of a big fish, which
theory I have begun to doubt, certainly Captain Dan and Brother R. C.
did not know it.

Remarks were forthcoming from me, I am ashamed to state, that should not
have been. Then I got Dan to tie splints on the rod, after which I
fought my quarry some more. The splints br