The Fish That Confessed: A Sturgeon’s Warning to a Sweeping Reporter

A Fishy Fraud.

The DISPATCH man was elbowing his way through a crowd in front of the Bank, yesterday, when he saw several large sturgeon lying on the Italian's counter alongside the Seattle market. Approaching the nearest and largest of them, the reporter murmured, "What a monstrous sturgeon!"

"Detestible life," replied the sturgeon in a voice that seemed to come from the very jaws of death.

"Great Heavens," cried the petrified reporter, "what does this mean?"

"Bow down thine ear," replied the fish, with awful solemnity. "Do you know who I am?"

"No," said the trembling reporter, "when can we have met? I have not been in swimming for thirteen years."

"I knew you once at Mud Springs, when you were publishing the Fog Horn of Freedom," replied the sturgeon. "As for me, I am Snuffy Sampler, the champion bilk. That fellow next to me is Balty McGinnis, the brace-dealer."

"Why— oh why, is this thus?" moaned the unhappy reporter.

"Listen, youth, to the words of power," promptly answered the sturgeon. "This is the doctrine of Pythagoras—the transmigration of souls. Every man who is a swindler or a blackleg in life, becomes a sturgeon after death."

"Great Heavens! can this be true?" gasped the reporter, who had once shoved three jacks up his sleeve.

"Yes, the frauds all become sturgeons," replied the fish. "See how the curse of Cain—but I must dissemble."

"Nay, tell me all," sobbed the reporter.

"Behold me then, a sturgeon," cried the fish. "To-morrow, I shall be served up at one hash-house as sea-bass, of which there are none in these waters; at another, I shall be called a fresh cod; at another a turbot; at another, a silver carp. Oh, this confession is agonizing—get that down!"

"Yes, I shall publish it in the Times Bull as soon as I can send it to Coos Bay," wept the reporter.

"Farewell then," said the fish, "I am prepared to go. That big rock cod near you was once a red-headed fid-dler's wife in Oregon. In a moment of guilty passion for me, she fanned her husband's brow with a flat-iron. We shall be united in another and a better world. Adieu!"

A dark film began to spread over the sturgeon’s eye and his soul was fast departing from the parish of earth. The reporter mobbed convulsively as the fish added:

"Remember my warning. Pay all your bills or you will become a sturgeon—the confidence man of the seas. Beware." And with an awful rattle, the fishy fraud weakened to exist.

The reporter, in a fainting condition, was carried over to the Bank Exchange, where Clancy revived him with a "lil'brimwater." But the lesson sank deep into his heart.