Our invalid was now enjoying a momentary interval of ease, and welcomed his guest very cheerfully, although without attempting to do more than extend his hand to him and beg him to sit near. Notwithstanding all deafness the compliments of the morning, the enquiries after different members of each other's family, and the comments on the weather, were made and understood and interchanged with great facility, and the visit went off swimmingly; until the stout gentleman, probably actuated by his desire to speak of his successful purchase of the morning, ventured, at the first pause, to ask his acquaintance if he were fond of fish?
'I thank you,' said the latter, 'the mare is decidedly better; that bleeding in the hoof did her business completely, and I don't doubt that by autumn she will be as well as ever.'
'I asked you,' said the visitor, in a determined tone, and like a person who has something to say, 'I asked you, whether you were fond of Fish?'--Alas! my masters! how many unnecessary, how many futile, how many absurd questions, among the idle words that are dignified with the title of conversation, are daily propounded in this grave world of ours! _Fond_ of fish! Fond of _Fish_! and that fish, a Shad! and that shad, a Connecticut River Shad! and that Connecticut River Shad, a prime brace of shad! in the highest season, and the highest order, and the finest brace of shad in the entire haul of Enoch Smith, now yet quivering, without the loss of one radiant scale, upon the snow-white dresser of this man's imagination! Ought I to call it, an imagination? Ought I to go on with the story, or abandon it as an impracticable thing? Fond of fish!
Oh commend me to a life of leisure in a small town upon the right bank of the River Connecticut, and let my lease begin at the beginning of the shad season! Give me Enoch Smith to draw the seine, a green lane to conduct me to the river shore, and a Claude Lorraine morning for my day of purchase! Fond of Fish! Why what an idea, to be conveyed upon the subject of this brace of shad, from one Christian Being to another Christian Being, who had both--as it is to be supposed--read and studied the lives of the apostles! Fond of Fish!!!
But the stout man, finding that he was not apprehended, reiterated the remarkable question; and in a still louder tone, exclaimed: I--asked--you--whether--you--are--fond--of--Fish?' making a pause between each of these peculiar words, and shooting the last word of the singular interrogatory out of his mouth, by means of his fore-teeth and a most emphatic under-lip, as a boy does a marble with the bent fore-finger and thumb of the right hand.