The Man In The Reservoir | Page 4

the strong swimmer who, sinking from exhaustion, must at last add a bubble to the wave as he suffocates beneath the element which now denied his mastery? If it were so, how fortunate was it that my floating rod at that moment attracted my attention as it dashed through the water by me. I saw on the instant that a fish had entangled itself in the wire noose. The rod quivered, plunged, came again to the surface, and rippled the water as it shot in arrowy flight from side to side of the tank. At last, driven toward the southeast corner of the Reservoir, the small end seemed to have got foul somewhere. The brazen butt, which, every time the fish sounded, was thrown up to the moon, now sank by its own weight, showing that the other end must be fast. But the cornered fish, evidently anchored somewhere by that short wire, floundered several times to the surface before I thought of striking out to the spot.
"The water is low now, and tolerably clear. You may see the very ledge there, sir, in yonder corner, on which the small end of my rod rested when I secured that pike with my hands. I did not take him from the slip-noose, however; but, standing upon the ledge, handled the rod in a workmanlike manner, as I flung that pound pickerel over the iron railing upon the top' of the parapet. The rod, as I have told you, barely reached from the railing to the water. It was a heavy, strong bass rod which I had borrowed in the 'Spirit of the Times' office; and when I discovered that the fish at the end of the wire made a strong enough knot to prevent me from drawing my tackle away from the railing around which it twined itself as I threw, why, as you can at once see, I had but little difficulty in making my way up the face of the wall with such assistance. The ladder which attracted your notice is, as you see, lashed to the iron railing in the identical spot where I thus made my escape; and, for fear of similar accidents, they have placed another one in the corresponding corner of the other compartment of the tank ever since my remarkable night's adventure in the Reservoir."

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