I replied “Yes.”
“Ah! it’s a beautiful simile, now, isn’t it?”
I said “I don’t quite see how.”
“What? You don’t see it?”
“No.”
“That’s strange. You’ve been acquainted with the Coast a long time, too. Well, the mud-fish is a stupid kind of fish, that, instead of trying to escape, buries itself in the mud, and allows itself to be easily caught by the hand. The Governor used the expression to mean that he wasn’t a fool.”
About ten minutes afterwards one of the innumerable secretaries remarked to me:—
“Did you catch that wonderful simile of His Excellency’s about the mud-fish?”
“Oh! yes,” I replied.
“You know what it means, of course?”