ke anything you please! It is
such stuff as stories are. And as you eat your fish from the store how
little do you reck of the glamour of what you are doing!

However, as it seems to me unlikely that a man of genius will be a fish
reporter shortly I will myself do the best I can to paint the tapestry
of the scenes of his calling. The advertisement in the newspaper read:
"Wanted--Reporter for weekly trade paper." Many called, but I was
chosen. Though, doubtless, no man living knew less about fish than I.

The news stands are each like a fair, so laden are they with magazines
in bright colours. It would seem almost as if there were a different
magazine for every few hundred and seven-tenth person, as the
statistics put these matters. And yet, it seems, there is a vast, a
very vast, periodical literature of which we, that is, magazine readers
in general, know nothing whatever. There is, for one, that fine, old,
standard publication, _Barrel and Box_, devoted to the subjects and the
interests of the coopering industry; there is, too, _The Dried Fruit
Packer and Western Canner_, as alert a magazine as one could wish--in
its kind; and from the home of classic American literature comes _The
New England Tradesman and Grocer_. And so on. At the place alone
where we went to press twenty-seven trade journals were printed every
week, from one for butchers to one for bankers.

_The Fish Industries Gazette_--Ah, yes! For some reason not clear
(though it is an engaging thing, I think) the word "gazette" is the
great word among the titles of trade journals. There are _The
Jewellers' Gazette_ and _The Women's Wear Gazette_ and _The Poulterers'
Gazette_ (of London), and _The Maritime Gazette_ (of Halifax), and
other gazettes quite without number. This word "gazette" makes its
appeal, too, curiously enough, to those who christen country papers;
and trade journals have much of the intimate charm of country papers.
The "trade" in each case is a kind of neighbourly community, separated
in its parts by space, but joined in unity of sympathy. "Personals"
are a vital feature of trade papers. "Walter Conner, who for some time
has conducted a bakery and fish market at Hudson, N.Y., has removed to
Fort Edward, leaving his brother Ed in charge at the Hudson place of
business."

_The Fish Industries Gazette_, as I say, was one of several in its
field, in friendly rivalry with _The Oyster Trade and Fisherman_ and
_The Pacific Fishe