and evening it undergoes this polishing
process, and on Sunday he rests himself by giving it another wipe.

"It's a little leaded, you know, George," he remarks, and at it he
goes. Human nature may stand this, but guns won't.

On one occasion when he tried to jam a cleaning rod through it, larger
than the bore, it refused to go.

[Illustration: "I KNEW IT WOULD COME OUT."]

"You won't, won't you," said he, as he raised it aloft and brought it
down with all his might on the floor. It went in; but the gun bulged
just as any good gun will do, and the eruption yet stands on the
barrel, a monument of his determination.

Steve was called in, and a pulling match ensued. Steve had hold of the
gun and Thee firmly clenched the rod. The gun could stand the combined
strength of two powerful men no better than it could resist the
jamming of the rod, and they parted. Steve went backwards over Mary
Rogers, a dog, and took a moist seat in a tub of warm water, which had
been prepared for cleaning guns. Steve said the water was hot, while
our fastidious friend looked bland, gathered himself up from out a
pile of empty shells, mixed with scraps of red flannel and oil-rags,
and said "I knew it would come out."

Josephus, the great Canarsie fisherman, is not an enthusiast about
gunning, and left his sporting traps at home. He only went down for a
few days' fishing, and was prepared to take large numbers of bluefish.
Armed with a stout line and squid, he invited us over to see him do
it. The ocean was rough, and came rolling up in long heavy swells; the
fish were far out at sea. After getting his line arranged to his
satisfaction, he took firm hold of it a few feet above the squid; we
all looked admiringly on. By a series of dexterous gyrations about his
head he sent it flying a hundred feet out into the water--it was
beautifully done. Skillfully he hauled it in, hand over hand. The
squid followed, as bright and shining as when he had cast it out, but
no fish. He made ready again, and with that nonchalant air of a man
who feels perfectly sure that he can do just what he wants to, he gave
it that preparatory whirling motion again, and away it went.

The best efforts will fail sometimes, and the most skillful are often
doomed to disappointment--it was so in this case. The hook did not go
for a blue fish, but fastened itself in the leg of a too confiding dog
that stood looking curiously on, just as those canine friends of man
so often d