fish-hooks from Pompeii that had been buried 2000 years, and come out
fish-hooks after all--a good deal like them Josiah uses in Jonesville
creek.

And speakin' of old things, we see some fishes that day--the oldest in
the world; they come from Colorado--dug out of the rocks of ages ago;
they wuz covered with bone instead of scales, which showed that they had
had a pretty hard time on't.

[Illustration: They wuz covered with bone instead of scales.]

And then there wuz a big collection of nets made by the Indians from
seal sinew, seal-skin braided, roots of willow tree, and whalebone.

Of these last it took four men three weeks to make one, and two of these
wuz gin in exchange for a jug of molasses to make rum with.

A shame and a disgrace! No savage would have cheated so--no, it takes a
white man to do that.

And we see artificial flies so nateral that a spider would go to weavin'
a net to catch it.

And artificial grasshoppers, and crickets, and frogs, and little
artificial minney fish made of metal, glass, pearl, and rubber. Why, if
I had seen one of 'em in the brook that runs through our paster, I
should have been tempted to have bent a pin, and take some weltin' cord
out of my pocket and go to fishin' for it.

And if they fooled me, who am often called very wise, what would you