“With a hook!” replied the boatman.

“To be sure you did—­but why did’nt he bite mine?”

“’Cause he came t’other side, I s’pose.”

“Vell, let me try that side then,” cries the tyro, and carefully changes his position.—­“Dear me, this here boat o’yourn wobbles about rayther, mister.”

“Nothing, sir, at all; it’s only the motion of the water.”

“I don’t like it, tho’; I can tell you, it makes me feel all over somehow.”

“It will go off, sir, in time; there’s another,” and he pulls in another wriggling fish, and casts him at the bottom of the boat.  “Well, that’s plaguey tiresome, any how—­two! and I’ve cotched nothin’ yet—­how do you do it?”

“Just so—­throw in your hook, and bide a bit—­and you’ll be sure, sir, to feel when there’s any thing on your hook; don’t you feel any thing yet?”

“Why, yes, I feels werry unwell!” cries the landsman; and, bringing up his hook and bait, requests the good-natured boatman to pull for shore, ’like vinkin,’—­which request; the obliging fellow immediately complies with, having agreeably fished at the expense of his fare; and, landing his whitings and the flat, laughs in his sleeve at the qualms of his customer.

But there is always an abundant crop of such fools as he, who pretend to dabble in a science, in utter ignorance of the elements; while, like Jason of old, the wily boatman finds a sheep with a golden fleece,—­although his brains are always too much on the alert to be what is technically termed—­wool-gathering.  Some people are desirous of seeing every thing; and many landsmen have yet to learn, that they may see a deal, without being a-board!

ANDREW MULLINS.—­AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I.—­Introductory.

“Let the neighbors smell ve has something respectable for once.”

There is certainly no style of writing requiring so much modest assurance as autobiography; a position which, I am confident, neither Lord Cherbury, nor Vidocq, or any other mortal blessed with an equal developement of the organ of self-esteem, can or could deny.

Home, ("sweet home,")—­in his Douglas—­gives, perhaps, one of the most concise and concentrated specimens extant, of this species of composition.  With what an imposing air does his youthful hero blow his own trumpet in those well-known lines, commencing,

“My name is Norval.”

Although a mere cock-boat in comparison with these first-rates, I think I may safely follow in their wake.  Should the critics, however, condescend to carp at me for likening myself to a cock-boat, I have no objection, if by a twist of their ingenuity, they can prove me to be a little funny!

Economy was one of the most prominent characteristics of the family from which I sprang.  Now, some authors would weary their indulgent readers with a flatulent chapter upon the moral beauty of this virtue; but as my first wish is to win favor by my candor, I must honestly confess, that necessity was the parent of this lean attenuated offspring!—­For, alas!