have to employ a surgeon to extract the hook from the ball of your
thumb.

[Illustration: "SHOO! FLY."]

We are assured by a broker, who, in Spring-time, always becomes a
brooker, that by far the surest lure for a large trout is the Greenback
Fly. He is acquainted with a man who, whenever he goes a-fishing, always
has a four-pound trout to pack in ice and send up to a friend in the
city. By post, a letter is dispatched to the same quarter, containing a
warm description of the playing and landing of that noble fish. The
sender usually states that he captured it with the famous fly known to
anglers as the Green Drake. Facts are against him, though; and it is
well understood by his friends that the fish was first taken by some
poaching rascal with a scoop-net, and subsequently hooked by the angler
with a five-dollar Greenback Fly.

Nothing in life is more beautiful than a five-dollar Greenback
Fly--except, of course, a ten-dollar one, or one of indefinitely larger
denomination.

Provided with this most charming and effective of lures, the angler is
always sure to fill his creel. He incurs no fatigue in doing so,
either, for all the boys of the village become his humble servants to
command; and if there be a four-pound trout in the miller's pond, he is
sure to hook it with the Greenback Fly, while the boys generally "hook
it" also, lest the miller should catch them at their tricks.

_How to make the Greenback Fly_--Give it to your wife. Much has been
said concerning the efficacy of the Water Fly as a lure. For our own