Next morning the storm subsided and I returned to Tampa. At the fish house of Mr. Savarese, I found my specimens in fine condition in an immense icebox. We at once began to pack them for shipment to Washington. As the tarpon lay on the floor Mr. Savarese asked, "What will he weigh?"
A Sure Thing
"Well," I replied, "you may guess his weight, but I have had a Græco-Roman wrestling match with him and I know his weight to a pound."
Mr. Savarese then measured him with a tape line.
"Six feet and three inches," he announced, "and he will weigh one hundred and fifty pounds."
"No," I rejoined, "not so much. He might weigh your figure in a few months with plenty of food and warmer water, but his present weight is one hundred and twenty-five pounds."
We put him on the scale, which he tipped at one hundred and twenty-four pounds.
A Fair Specimen
The hundreds of thousands of visitors to the World's Fair who admired the graceful proportions of this tarpon, in the gelatin cast, painted in life colors, and hung in the Government building, little imagined the hardships and excitement attending its capture, or the subsequent swelled face of poor Captain Faulkner.