was gone a journey, And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an office at Hatton Garden; And to pay for the damage he’d done, to boot, and to beg some strange gentleman’s pardon. And wasn’t he once fished out himself, and a man had to dive to find him, And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people behind him? Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life--whilst I was a-screaming and raving, And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man for his saving, And didn’t Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her taking dudgeon At her favourite cat being chok’d, poor Puss, with a hook sow’d up in a gudgeon? And old Brown complain’d that he pluck’d his live fowls, and not without show of reason, For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t their moulting season; And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their screeching and cackles, For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he called them the hackles. A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it warn’t picking enough, When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my sable muff-- “O mercy!” thinks I, “there’s the moth in the house!” for the fur was all gone in patches; And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches-- But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies--sham flies to go trolling and trouting, For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me a-doubting. A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers! And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers! And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing; So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing. As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too late to be lucky, For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of Your servant, JANE ELIZABETH STUCKEY. [Illustration: THERE’S NEVER A WHALE WITHOUT A BLUBBER.] [16] Chewing and spitting out bullock’s brains into the water for ground-bait is called _blowing of brains_. Salter’s Angler’s Guide. RIGHT AND WRONG. A SKETCH AT SEA.