Little is known about E.B. Flatch, except that he was a fish monger who preferred a pipe to a hookah due to a childhood injury. He was firmly committed to mid-nineteenth-century realism, which was considered a faux pas by his contemporaries, owing to his having lived two centuries previous. As a fish monger turned literary giant, he is largely considered to be the first author to have written about "what he knows":
Fred: "Kipper well, Tom?"Tom: "Not bass, Fred. And you?"
Fred: "Can't crabfish. How's the whale?"
Tom: "At home with a haddock. You know."
Fred: "Octopus to reason why."
Tom: "Herring a pint?"
Fred: "I'm cutting shrimp. Make it half."
Tom: "How's shark going?"
Fred: "Sole on retirement."
Tom: "Sounds gills to me."
Fred: "Forty years of pollocks. Anchovy* show for it?"
[Enter Harry. His coat is dripping, rain-sodden. Soddin' rain, he mutters to himself.]
Tom: "Here's Harry. Kipper well, Harry?"
* Anchovy. Readers may note the use of the word "anchovy" where previous translations largely preferred "salmon".
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