The Milan Exchange

If you could have known Farley Doble you would have warmed up to that man! As for me, I adored him. He could so sweetly and so broadly lie; the mendacity rippled from his lips with such a liquid flow, falling with so musical a splash—spread out amongst the hard realities with an encroachment so gentle, and rose above the tops of the tallest facts with such regularity of supersession—that listening to him was almost as good as a funeral. The fellow's imagination took a five-barred fact like a bird; and as for mere probabilities he simply burst through them without so much as ever blinking his eyes. Such a man does not come once in a century! He told me this, one day, about a dog:

A Mrs. Turk, living near Leamington, has one of those small, smooth dogs, about the size of two-and-a-half rats, and in figure something like a horse-I'm sure I don't know what you call them. She was surprised one day to see the creature sneaking about the house in obscure corners, as if very much ashamed of itself. Examination revealed the lack of a tail, the bleeding stump of which looked as if the missing part had been pinched off by a gate. Being questioned, the little beast gave an evasive answer by violently convulsing the whole hinder part of its body as if to say, "O it doesn't matter about the tail; you see how well I can wag without it." The lady, however, instituted rigorous search for the lost member, and soon found it under circumstances that left no doubt as to the cause of the injury. The animal had made an unlawful intrusion into the kitchen, and in the absence of the tutelary deity had leaped atop of a table to prey upon the obsolete comestibles from the dining-room. In turning about amongst the dishes it had unluckily got its tail into a lobster salad. I asked Mr. Doble afterward why he had not said the dog got its tail into the claw of a living lobster. He was quite thoughtful for a moment, then inquired if lobsters could live for any considerable time out of the water, and being assured that nothing was easier for them he brightened up a bit and said, "The fact is, I feared if I related this thing as it actually occurred your ignorance of the habits of lobsters might lead you to suspect me of lying." That was characteristic; he thought I would deem it less improbable that a lobster salad should pinch off a dog's tail than that there should be a living lobster on a kitchen table.

He came to my house once with a long story about a man who, in trying a new-fangled scythe, cut off both legs at the thighs. The accident occurred in a field at some distance from the man's house, and when he was quite alone; but taking a leg under each arm, he started across the country for home. In surmounting a fence he accidentally dropped his legs, which at once cut away as fast as they could, arriving at the house a quarter of an hour before him. The man's wife was enjoying her siesta when the legs put in an appearance and began kicking at the door for admittance. Very much annoyed, the woman got up from her couch and searched for a missile. Nothing offering but her husband's bootjack, she flung that out of the window at her disturbers; and when the man arrived, what did he see but one leg standing in its stocking on the jack, holding it down for the other to draw off his boot! Such is the force of habit. The spectacle reminded the man that he had walked all that distance across the stubble barefooted. You will hardly believe that when he had finished this ridiculous tale Mr. Doble attributed my evident incredulity to mere caprice, being quite unconscious of any inherent improbability in what he had related. But far from being offended he went on for a full hour, varying and embellishing the fiction, in the friendly hope of suiting me somehow.

It was Doble who told me that yarn about the eels; though perhaps you never heard it. "I was spending the winter in Scotland," said he, "with my friend Sandy MacSimpleton, and one day we agreed on a day's fishing in Loch Porridge, which was frozen to a depth of nearly two feet. This lake at that time contained but one kind of fish called lumpers, from their obesity. They were peculiar in shape, about eighteen inches in girth in the middle, and tapering rapidly toward the head, which was remarkably small, with a sharp nose. When we were about to go upon the ice I casually remarked that we should probably catch some fine eels, as it seemed a good day for eels. Sandy looked astonished, and offered to lay ten sovereigns to a shilling that there was not an eel in the lake. I booked the bet; then going out to the ice we cut a big hole and dropped in our lines. Of course we caught nothing but lumpers. Sandy began to chaff me, and pretending annoyance I took my tackle and went to another spot, where I soon pulled out an eel as long as a man, and sent it whirling across the ice to Sandy's feet. I never saw a man so surprised; but when I had repeated this a dozen times, and he had critically examined every eel, he simply put up his tackle and went home without a word. It was very simple; instead of cutting a block out of the ice I had secretly bored a hole through with an auger of the size that I wanted my eels. Having more than I needed, I put most of them back in the water, and now the lake is full of eels, which have quite exterminated the lumpers. The eels are called 'Lampreys,' a word which hints feebly at their origin."

Another of Doble's fish stories was this. He was traveling once in a remote corner of Italy, when he came upon a wide pool of what looked like liquid amber, or Bass' ale without its toga. He inspected the liquid and found it oil-whether cod-liver oil, hair-oil or petroleum he could not determine. Desirous of knowing all he could about so remarkable a lake-not that he was unfamiliar with such-he got out his fishing-line, baited the hook with a bit of meat, cast it in and pulled out a fine herring! In half an hour he had landed a wagon-load of them. When Doble had got to that point in his narrative I interrupted him with the simple remark that the herring, being a salt-water fish, could not possibly exist in oil, adding, to forestall argument, that I had tried them in that element a thousand times. He gave a quick furtive glance at my face from the corner of his eye, to assure himself there was no hope, then began groping nervously with his hands about the sides of his chair, as was his manner when cornered; and, finally, getting his idea, replied with perfect confidence: "You are quite right-they were sardines."-English Paper.