Caught in his life, and it had looked more beautiful
than any other, so would probably taste better.
Going back to the hotel he called the maid and told her he had brought
in a mackerel which he had caught for his tea, and ordered her to have
it prepared. He had it boiled and enjoyed it very much, but on the
following morning when the bill was brought to him he found that he had
been charged two shillings for fish.
"Why, what does this item mean?" he exclaimed. "I've had no fish in
this hotel except a mackerel which I caught myself and brought back for
my tea, and now I'm asked to pay two shillings for it? Just take the
bill back to your mistress and tell her the fish was mine - I caught it
myself in the Bay yesterday afternoon."
The girl took it up, and by-and-by returned and said her mistress had
consented to take threepence off the bill as he had provided the fish
himself.
"No," he said, indignantly, "I'll have nothing off the bill, I'll pay
the full amount," and pay it he did in his anger, then went off to say
goodbye to his friend, to whom he related the case.
His friend, being in the same hilarious humour as on the previous day,
burst out laughing and made a good deal of fun over the matter.
That, he said, was the whole story of how he went fishing and caught a
mackerel, and what came of it. But it was not quite all, for he went on
to tell us that he still visited Bristol regularly to receive big and
ever bigger orders from that same old customer of his, whose business
had gone on increasing ever since; and invariably after finishing their
business his friend remarks in a casual sort of way: "By the way, old
man, do you remember that mackerel you caught at Weymouth which you had
for tea, and were charged two shillings for?" "Then he laughs just as
heartily as if it had only happened yesterday, and I leave him in a
good humour, and say to myself: 'Now, I'll hear no more about that
blessed mackerel till I go round to Bristol again in three months'
time.'"
"How long ago did you say it was since you caught the mackerel?" I
inquired.
"About forty years."
"Then," I said, "it was a very lucky fish for you - worth more perhaps
than if a big diamond had been found in its belly. The man had got his
joke - the one joke of his life perhaps - and was determined to stick to
it, and that kept him faithful to you in spite of his wife's wish to
distribute their orders among a lot of travellers."
He replied that I was perhaps right and that it had turned out a lucky
fish for him.
