"Do you intend wemaining here all day? Do you know, I think I've no chance of any spo't." "Oh, wait till you hook _one_ fish, at all events," said Murphy; "just have it to say you killed a salmon in the new style. The day is promising better. I'm sure we'll have sport yet. Hilloa! I've another!" and Murphy began hauling in the salmon. "Billy, you rascal, get ready; watch him--that's it--mind him now!" Billy put out his gaff to seize the prize, and, making a grand swoop, affected to miss the fish. "Gaff him, you thief, gaff him!" shouted Murphy, "gaff him, or he'll be off." "Oh, he's so lively, sir!" roared Billy; "he's a rogue, sir--he won't let me put the gaff undher him, sir--ow, he slipped away agin." "Make haste, Billy, or I can't hold him." "Oh, the thief!" said Billy; "one would think he was cotcht before, he's so up to it. Ha!--hurroo!--I have him now, sir." Billy made all the splash he could in the water as Murphy lifted the fish to the surface and swung him into the boat. Again there was the flopping and the riot, and Billy screeching, "Kill him, sir!--kill him, sir!--or he'll be off out o' my hands!" In proper time the fish _was_ killed and shown up in triumph, and the imposture completed. And now Furlong began to experience that peculiar longing for catching a fish, which always possesses men who see fish taken by others; and the desire to have a salmon of his own killing induced him to remain on the river. In the long intervals of idleness which occurred between the occasional hooking up of the salmon, which Murphy _did_ every now and then, Furlong _would be talking_ about business to Dick Dawson, so that they had not been very long on the water until Dick became enlightened on some more very important points connected with the election. Murphy now pushed his boat on towards the shore. "You're not going yet?" said the anxious fisherman;--"_do_ wait till I catch a fish!" "Certainly," said Murphy: "I'm only going to put Billy ashore, and send home what we've already caught. Mrs. O'Grady is passionately fond of salmon." Billy was landed, and a large basket in which the salmon had been brought down to the boat, was landed also--_empty_; and Murphy, lifting the basket as if it contained a considerable weight, placed it on Billy's head, and the sly young rascal bent beneath it, as if all the fish Murphy had pretended to take were really in it; and he went on his homeward way, with a tottering step, as if the load were too much for him. "That boy," said Furlong, "will never be able to cawwy all those fish to the house." "Oh, they won't be too much for him," said Dick. "Curse the fish! I wish they'd bite. That thief, Murphy, has had all the sport; but he's the best fisherman in the county, I'll own that."