"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.
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