A SHARK'S MISTAKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7840, 8 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SHARK'S MISTAKE.

"Don't you do no foolin* with a shark," said a Barnegat fisherman, as he crowded tobacco into his pipe for another smoke. "Sharks is an animal as knows more'n yon think for. A couple of years ago I took a party out after weak fish in the yacht Mary. She belongs to Captain Small, or did afore he died. We were anchored up in Bay No. 3, and the fish were biting like smoke, when all at once the school left us. £ knew that meant a shark, and I looked around for him. Purty soon he came alongside, and I up with a pole and give him an awful jab in the back. You can't hurt a shark's body very well, but his feelings are as tender as a child's. This fellow ran off a bit and cocked, his eye at me, and took a good long squint. Then he ran around under the stern to read the yacht's name, and when he went off he gave his tail a flirt, which meant that he would call around and make it pleasant for me some other time.

V Well, in the course of three or four days Captain Small got home and went out in tho Mary for sheephead. He went up to No. '3 and cast anchor, and then sat down in his usual position— right leg hanging over, the port quarter, and his foot just touching the water. He hadn't been there ten minutes before along came a shark and cut that leg off below the knee as slick as a chopper could have done it. The captain had skeercely realised his lots afore the fish came back with the leg, give himself a hint and a twist, and the bloody meat was flung baok into the boat. For why ? Because the shark had discovered that he had bit the wrong man. He was after me, and he had got Small. He had nothin' agin Small, and he cheerfully brought back the leg when he discovered his mistake. The captain he died of the bite, but not before I had explained things, and the last thing he said was that he forgave the shark."— Free Press.