"Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis?"

"Is it salmon, thin, your honour manes? Salmon? Cartloads it is
of thim, thin, an' ridgmens, shouldthering ache out of water, av'
ye'd but the luck to see thim."

Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.

"But there can't be a salmon here, Dennis! and, if you'll but
think, if one had come up last tide, he'd be gone to the higher
pools by now."

"Shure thin, and your honour's the thrue fisherman, and understands
it all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye'd known the wather a
thousand years! As I said, how could there be a fish here at all,
just now?"

"But you said just now they were shouldering each other out of
water?"

And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome, sly, soft,
sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and answer with
the prettiest smile:

"Shure, and didn't I think your honour would like a pleasant
answer?"

So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of giving
pleasant answers: but, instead of being angry with him, you must
remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no better; so you must