Nick Babas Last Drink and Other Sketches | Page 8

and higher and then dying out entirely. The clouds, however, soon drifted away, the sun appeared as bright and beautiful as summer--almost persuading us to take off our coats. Disheartened at the coquettish nature of the weather, we gave it up. Not a bird to be seen--we took our bottles, and throwing our heads back on our shoulders, tried to look through the bottoms of them--they in turn gave out a gurgling sound of complaining emptiness. We fell into a refreshing sleep; the hours passed away unheeded, until we were awakened by the rustling of the reeds bending in the breeze, whispering of the coveted blow. Heavy black clouds were gathering, and soon old Boreas came cracking out from the right point of the compass.
This aroused the ducks in the open water to flight, and they came in, seeking the shelter of the shore--a fatal protection. Charles, the original explorer of the Sound as a sporting place, and founder of the "Raymond Hall" Club, did some good work--taking them, right and left, with each barrel, and dropping single blue-winged teal with unerring aim.
Theodoric is the most amiable, patient friend imaginable; can conduct a bank equal to any man in New York; and we all esteem him very much. He labors under the mild hallucination, however, that he must be constantly doing something, and nearly all this is expended in cleaning his gun. Morning and evening it undergoes this polishing process, and on Sunday he rests himself by giving it another wipe.
"It's a little leaded, you know, George," he remarks, and at it he goes. Human nature may stand this, but guns won't.
On one occasion when he tried to jam a cleaning rod through it, larger than the bore, it refused to go.
[Illustration: "I KNEW IT WOULD COME OUT."]
"You won't, won't you," said he, as he raised it aloft and brought it down with all his might on the floor. It went in; but the gun bulged just as any good gun will do, and the eruption yet stands on the barrel, a monument of his determination.
Steve was called in, and a pulling match ensued. Steve had hold of the gun and Thee firmly clenched the rod. The gun could stand the combined strength of two powerful men no better than it could resist the jamming of the rod, and they parted. Steve went backwards over Mary Rogers, a dog, and took a moist seat in a tub of warm water, which had been prepared for cleaning guns. Steve said the water was hot, while our fastidious friend looked bland, gathered himself up from out a pile of empty shells, mixed with scraps of red flannel and oil-rags, and said "I knew it would come out."
Josephus, the great Canarsie fisherman, is not an enthusiast about gunning, and left his sporting traps at home. He only went down for a few days' fishing, and was prepared to take large numbers of bluefish. Armed with a stout line and squid, he invited us over to see him do it. The ocean was rough, and came rolling up in long heavy swells; the fish were far out at sea. After getting his line arranged to his satisfaction, he took firm hold of it a few feet above the squid; we all looked admiringly on. By a series of dexterous gyrations about his head he sent it flying a hundred feet out into the water--it was beautifully done. Skillfully he hauled it in, hand over hand. The squid followed, as bright and shining as when he had cast it out, but no fish. He made ready again, and with that nonchalant air of a man who feels perfectly sure that he can do just what he wants to, he gave it that preparatory whirling motion again, and away it went.
The best efforts will fail sometimes, and the most skillful are often doomed to disappointment--it was so in this case. The hook did not go for a blue fish, but fastened itself in the leg of a too confiding dog that stood looking curiously on, just as those canine friends of man so often do. The misguided animal went howling away, and had to be captured and the hook extracted.
[Illustration: A QUEER FISH.]
He felt sure he could do it, however, and he tried it again, with as much preparation as before, and twice the determination; he missed the sea altogether, and the barbed instrument buried itself into that portion of male wearing apparel that comes in contact with the chair, when one indulges in that agreeable and refreshing posture of sitting down: they will need repairing.
Paullo is a good shot--with a knife and fork--and can look on at others who are doing hard work, with more nerve and complacency than any man who visits the Sound.