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“Perhaps you think,” said the old man, “from the way I spoke, that I don’t believe them fellers with the jinted poles can ketch fish, but that ain’t so. That old story about the little boy with the pin-hook who ketched all the fish, while the gentleman with the modern improvements, who stood alongside of him, kep’ throwin’ out his beautiful flies and never got nothin’, is a pure lie. The fancy chaps, who must have ev’rythin’ jist so, gen’rally gits fish. But for all that, I don’t like their way of fishin’, and I take no stock in it myself. I’ve been fishin’, on and off, ever since I was a little boy, and I’ve caught nigh every kind there is, from the big jew-fish and cavalyoes down South, to the trout and minnies round about here. But when I ketch a fish, the first thing I do is to try to git him on the hook, and the next thing is to git him out of the water jist as soon as I kin. I don’t put in no time worryin’ him. There’s only two animals in the world that likes to worry smaller creeturs a good while afore they kill ’em; one is the cat, and the other is what they call the game fisherman. This kind of a feller never goes after no fish that don’t mind being ketched. He goes fur them kinds that loves their home in the water and hates most to leave it, and he makes it jist as hard fur ’em as he kin. What the game fisher likes is the smallest kind of a hook, the thinnest line, and a fish that it takes a good while to weaken. The longer the weak’nin’ business kin be spun out, the more the sport. The idee is to let the fish think there’s a chance fur him to git away. That’s jist like the cat with her mouse. She lets the little creetur hop off, but the minnit he gits fur enough away, she jumps on him and jabs him with her claws, and then, if there’s any game left in him, she lets him try again. Of course the game fisher could have a strong line and a stout pole and git his fish in a good sight quicker, if he wanted to, but that wouldn’t be sport. He couldn’t give him the butt and spin him out, and reel him in, and let him jump and run till his pluck is clean worn out. Now, I likes to git my fish ashore with all the pluck in ’em. It makes ’em taste better. And as fur fun, I’ll be bound I’ve had jist as much of that, and more, too, than most of these fellers who are so dreadful anxious to have everythin’ jist right, and think they can’t go fishin’ till they’ve spent enough money to buy a suit of Sunday clothes. As a gen’ral rule they’re a solemn lot, and work pretty hard at their fun. When I work I want to be paid fur it, and when I go in fur fun I want to take it easy and cheerful. Now I wouldn’t say so much agen these fellers,” said old Peter, as he arose and put his empty pipe on a little shelf under the porch-roof, “if it wasn’t for one thing, and that is, that they think that their kind of fishin’ is the only kind worth considerin’. The way they look down upon plain Christian fishin’ is enough to rile a hitchin’-post. I don’t want to say nothin’ agen no man’s way of attendin’ to his own affairs, whether it’s kitchen-gardenin’, or whether it’s fishin’, if he says nothin’ agen my way; but when he looks down on me, and grins at me, I want to haul myself up, and grin at him, if I kin. And in this case, I kin. I s’pose the house-cat and the cat-fisher (by which I don’t mean the man who fishes for cat-fish) was both made as they is, and they can’t help it; but that don’t give ’em no right to put on airs before other bein’s, who gits their meat with a square kill. Good-night. And sence I’ve talked so much about it, I’ve a mind to go fishin’ with you to-morrow myself.”