"A LITTLE TOO MUCH FISH."
"MY SHARK."
BY EESUNG EYLISS.
The experience of this comical youth who is struggling so valiantly with "A little too much fish" reminds me of my adventure with the finny monster that I always call "my shark."
"Hold on to him, I say. Don't let him get the better of you. Hold him tight. There, you have let him run again."
It was the minister who spoke; but I paid little heed to his advice, for at that moment I was busy—very busy; and not only that, but I was satisfied that the present business I understood better than my adviser.
The way of it was this. We were in Gardiner's Bay; had gone down to fish for porgees chiefly, though, of course, taking whatever came to hand. It was my custom to take with me on such occasions a shark line, and not unfrequently I had fine sport in that way. This day, of which I have been speaking, I had invited the pastor of the village church to accompany me, and with him had come a theological student who was visiting at his house.
We had a delightful sail down the bay, and commenced our fishing. The first porgee which I caught, I rapped on the head, and then putting him on my shark hook as bait I paid out the line (a half-inch rope to which the hook was attached) until it had run off with the tide about fifty feet astern of us, and resumed my fishing.
Our success was good, and we were enjoying it finely when r-a-s-p, r-a-s-p I heard my heavy shark line dragging out over the gunnel of the boat. I knew the sound well, and what it meant; a shark was going off with my baited porgee.