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Updated: June 11, 2025
"Have you been to sea since we saw you last?" asked Fritz. "If I had fallen in with the craft at sea, Master Fritz, I should not have been half so much astonished. The sea is the natural element of ships; we do not find gudgeons in corn fields, nor shoot hares on the ocean. But it was on land that I hailed the Nelson."
The inn where I stopped is not worth describing; but it gave me a dish of gudgeons caught in the Dordogne that deserved to be remembered. I did not remain long at Argentat, for I was determined to reach Beaulieu that night.
"And just when I had got it nearly ashore, by the very place where you are sitting, on that shelving bank, young man, the line broke, and the perch twisted himself among those roots, and cacodaemon that he was ran off, hook and all. Well, that fish haunted me; never before had I seen such a fish. Minnows I had caught in the Thames and elsewhere, also gudgeons, and occasionally a dace.
One wretch goes under, but the stock of human folly is unlimited, and the shoal of gudgeons moves steadily into the bookmaker's net. One betting-agent in France receives some five thousand letters and telegrams per day, and all this huge correspondence comes from persons who never take the trouble to see a race, but who are bitten with the gambler's fever.
Then the rudder gudgeons carried away, and the boat broached to and shipped a heavy sea, which with other damage tore the compass from the after-thwart, where it had been placed, and completely smashed and rendered it useless. A few hours later, however, the weather cleared, the gale died away, and the gentle south-east trade again breathed upon them.
"They will no longer say that the Spaniards buy gudgeons. The fish is mine! There are your twenty ducats!" And, with a supercilious air, Don Bempo threw the money upon the table. But just as proudly did the fisherman push back the money. "The fish is sold!" said he. "Forward, march!" repeated Signor Gianettino his word of command. "Forward to the kitchen of his excellency Cardinal Bernis!"
Such a fish as this is too dear for you; you Spanish gentlemen should buy gudgeons!" "Bravo! bravo!" cried the laughing spectators. "Gudgeons for the Spanish gentlemen with high-nosed faces and empty pockets!" Don Bempo blushed with anger and wounded pride. "I shall unquestionably buy this fish," said he, "for nothing is too dear for my master when the honor of our nation is to be upheld.
Game, pheasants, fowls, partridges, larks, hares, dotterels, wild ducks, teal, snipes, widgeon, grouse. Fish. Dories, smelts, pike, perch, holibets, brills, carp, salmon trout, barbel, gudgeons, tench, shellfish. Vegetables. As in January, French beans, runners, windsor beans. Fruit. Peaches, pears, figs, bullace, grapes, apples, medlars, damsons, filberts, nuts, walnuts, quinces, services.
Well, one Sunday, at a time that William was in very good health to all appearance, the bell that was ringing for church went very heavy all of a sudden; the sexton, who told me o't, said he'd not known the bell go so heavy in his hand for years it was just as if the gudgeons wanted oiling. That was on the Sunday, as I say.
I must buy a "Peerage" for one thing, and a "Baronetage," and a "House of Commons," and a "Landed Gentry," and learn what people are about me. 'I must go to Doctors' Commons and read up wills of the parents of any likely gudgeons I may know.
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