“Well, I rose early the next morning to go out with the old fisherman to his gill-nets.  It would have done you good, as it did me, to see how merry every living thing was.  The birds, how jolly they were, and how refreshing the breeze was that came stealing over the water, making one feel as if he would like to shout and hurrah in the buoyancy, the brightness, and glory of the morning.  But I am not going to be poetical about the sunrise, and the singing birds.  We went out upon the river just as the sun came up with his great, round, red face, for there was a light smoky haze floating above the eastern horizon, and threw his light like a stream of crimson flame across the water; and the meadow lark perched upon his fence stake, the blackbird upon his alderbush, the brown thrush on the topmost spray of the wild thorn, and the bob-o’-link, as he leaped from the meadow and poised himself on his fluttering wings in mid air, all sent up a shout of gladness as if hailing the god of the morning.

“We came to the nets and began to draw in.  You ought to have seen the fish.  There were pickerel from four to ten pounds in weight, white fish, black bass, rock bass, Oswego bass, and pike by the dozen; and, what was a stranger to me, a queer looking specimen of the piscatory tribes, half bull-head, and half eel, with a cross of the lizard.

“‘What on earth is that?’ said I, to the fisherman. “‘That,’ said he, ‘is a species of ling; we call it in these parts a lawyer’

“‘A lawyer!’ said I; ‘why, pray?’

“‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ’unless it’s because he ain’t of much use, and is the slipriest fish that swims.’

“Mark,” continued the doctor, turning to Spalding; “I mean no personality.  I am simply giving the old fisherman’s words, not my own.”

“Proceed with the case,” said Spalding, as he sent a column of smoke curling upward from his lips, and with a gravity that was refreshing.

“Well,” resumed the doctor, “the lawyers were thrown by themselves, and one old fat fellow, weighing, perhaps, five or six pounds, fixed his great, round, glassy eyes upon me, and opened his ugly mouth, and I thought I heard him say, interrogatively, ‘Well,’ as if demanding that the case should proceed at once.

“‘Well,’ said I, in reply, ‘what’s out?’

“‘What’s out!’ he answered; ’I’m out—­I’m out of my element—­out of water—­out of court—­and in this hot, dry atmosphere, almost out of breath.  But what have I been summoned here for?  I demand a copy of the complaint.’

“‘My dear sir,’ said I, ’I’m not a member of the court.  I don’t belong to the bar—­I’m not the plaintiff—­I’m not in the profession, nor on the bench.  I’m neither sheriff, constable nor juror.  I’m only a spectator.  In the Rackett Woods, among the lakes and streams of that wild region, with a rod and fly, I’m at home with the trout, but;——­’ “‘Oh! ho!’ he exclaimed with a chuckle, ’you’re the chap I was consulted about down near the mouth of the Rackett the other day, by a country trout, who was on a journey to visit his relatives in the streams of Canada.  He showed me a hole in his jaw, made by your hook at the mouth of the Bog river.  I’ve filed a summons and complaint against you for assault and battery, and beg to notify you of the fact.’