way to its fascinations. Sir, I am a martyr to this stream; it has been
the Delilah of my existence."

LEONARD (interested, the last sentence seemed to him poetical).--"The
Delilah! sir, the Delilah!"

ANGLER.--"The Delilah. Young man, listen, and be warned by example.
When I was about your age, I first came to this stream to fish. Sir, on
that fatal day, about three p.m., I hooked up a fish,--such a big one, it
must have weighed a pound and a half. Sir, it was that length; "and the
angler put finger to wrist. "And just when I had got it nearly ashore,
by the very place where you are sitting, on that shelving bank, young
man, the line broke, and the perch twisted himself among those roots,
and--cacodaemon that he was--ran off, hook and all. Well, that fish
haunted me; never before had I seen such a fish. Minnows I had caught in
the Thames and elsewhere, also gudgeons, and occasionally a dace. But a
fish like that--a PERCH, all his fins up, like the sails of a man-of-war
--a monster perch,--a whale of a perch! No, never till then had I known
what leviathans lie hid within the deeps. I could not sleep till I
had returned; and again, sir,--I caught that perch. And this time I
pulled him fairly out of the water. He escaped; and how did he escape?
Sir, he left his eye behind him on the hook. Years, long years, have
passed since then; but never shall I forget the agony of that moment."

LEONARD.--"To the perch, sir?"

ANGLER.--"Perch! agony to him! He enjoyed it. Agony to me! I gazed on
that eye, and the eye looked as sly and as wicked as if it were laughing
in my face. Well, sir, I had heard that there is no better bait for a
perch than a perch's eye. I adjusted that eye on the hook, and dropped