Bill the Minder

by W. Heath Robinson

'I now erected my pole on the sands, after once more baiting my hook, this time with a piece of my last kernel, having taken the precaution of cutting it into six pieces. I now waited patiently, week after week, subsisting on the oysters, the starfish, and the edible crustaceans, that wandered tamely about the shore. Months now passed by, and, one by one, the five pieces of my last yap kernel had followed the other five kernels with which I had set out from home. I am not easily beaten, however, and though many months had passed by without my meeting with any success, I would not give in, but husbanded my last piece of bait with the greatest care. I cut a chip of wood from my angling pole, and shaped it in the form

of a kernel of the Peruvian yap bean. This I rubbed well all over with the tiny piece of the real kernel that yet remained to me, until it assumed somewhat the colour of the original bean and, certainly, when applied to the tip of the tongue, it appeared to partake, though very slightly, it is true, of the original flavour, and with this I once more baited my hook.

'By this means I made my last piece of bean last for some years, for as soon as the artificial bean had lost its flavour, I rubbed it up again with the real one. But even this could not go on for ever, and, at last, the true piece was worn right away; so, to preserve what little flavour there yet remained of the true bean in the false bean, on which it had been so often rubbed, I soaked it for six days in a large shell of rain-water. In the meantime I cut another chip from my pole, and spent nearly six days in carving out another artificial

kernel. Before baiting my hook with this, I dipped it into the fluid in which the old wooden kernel was still soaking, whence it received a very very faint suggestion of the original flavour, but so faint was this that it had to be redipped three times a day. This went on for some time, until the precious liquor began to run low, and I was compelled to dilute it still further, in the proportion of about five drops to a mussel-shellful of water, into which the wooden kernel was now dipped ten or twelve times a day.

'Well, I had been at this game, I should say, getting on for twenty years, and now resolved to have done with it, after risking all on one throw. So I dropped my wooden kernel, all rotted and weather-beaten as it was, into what little there remained over of the pure liquor, this time without diluting it at all, and then let it stew all day in the sun.

'In the evening the liquor was all evaporated, and the wooden bean seemed to the taste as though it possibly might have been in the vicinity of a real one some time before. On that evening, for the last time, I baited my hook and slept soundly at the foot of the pole.

'I was awakened next morning by the wind that had arisen during the night, and a great wrenching noise, as it tore my poor old angling-pole from its place in the sand, and carried it out to sea.

'"That settles it once and for all," thought I, much relieved, "and I'm off home," and I set about getting

my things together. While I was thus engaged, it occurred to me that the old pole might be useful for fires, so I swam out for it. Already it had been blown some way out to sea, and, as the tide was against me, it was only with a very great exertion of strength that I gained at all upon it, and I was just about to give it up when I beheld, fastened to the bent pin at the end of the pole, the wretched crane. The sight lent me greater strength, and, after incredible exertions, I reached the pole almost exhausted. We were now too far from the shore to attempt to return, so I got astride the pole, and immediately proceeded to unfasten the unhappy fowl from my bent pin. At first I thought the poor thing dead, but I nursed it in my arms all through the ensuing night, and, on the following morning, happening to glance down its half-opened beak, I could just see that my wooden imitation of the kernel of the Peruvian yap bean had become lodged in its throat. This I at once removed, and, to my great joy, the dejected fowl almost immediately opened its eyes. Soon it became its old stately self again, though now I could see that the poor thing had aged very considerably since it left home.