Menhardoc Part 13

"What? Don't they teach you at school what squid is?" said Josh sharply.

"No," cried the boy.

"A mussy me!" said Josh in tones of disgust. "Then they ought to be ashamed of themselves."

"But they don't know," said the boy impatiently. "I say, what is it?"

"Cuttle-fish," said Will.

"Cut-tle-fish!" cried d.i.c.k. "Oh! I know what that is--all long legs and suckers, and got an ink-bag and a pen in its body."

"Yes, that's it," said Will, laughing. "We call it squid. It makes a good tough bait, that don't come off, and the fish like it."

"Well, it is rum stuff," cried d.i.c.k, picking up a piece and turning it over in his fingers. "Here, Taff, look!"

His brother screwed up his face with an aspect of disgust, and declined to touch the fishes' _bonne-bouche_; but he looked at it eagerly all the same.

"I say, what do you catch?" said d.i.c.k, seating himself tailor-fashion on the deck opposite Will.

"What? on this line? Nothing sometimes."

"Oh! of course. I often go fishing up the river when we're at home, and catch nothing. But what do you catch when you have any luck?"

"Lots o' things," said Josh; "skates, rays, plaice, brill, soles, john-dories, gurnets--lots of 'em--small conger, and when we're very lucky p'r'aps a turbot."

"Oh! I say," cried the boy, with his eyes sparkling, "shouldn't I like to see conger too! They're whopping great chaps, arn't they, like cod-fish pulled out long?"

"Well, no," said Will, "they're more like long ling; but we can't catch big ones on a line like this--only small."

"But there are big ones here, arn't there?"

"Oh, yes!" said Will; "off there among the rocks sometimes, six and seven foot long."

"But why don't you catch big ones on a line like that?"

"Line like that!" broke in Josh; "why, a conger would put his teeth through it in a moment. You're obliged to have a single line for a conger, with a wire-snooded hook and swivels, big hooks bound with wire, something like this here."

As he spoke he held out the hook, just finished as to its binding on.

"And what's that for?" cried the boy, taking the hook.

"Gaffing of 'em," said Josh; but he p.r.o.nounced it "_gahfin'_ of 'em."

"Oh, I do want to go fishing!" cried the boy eagerly. "What are you going to do with that long-line?"

"Lay it out in the bay," said Will, "with a creeper at each end."

"A what?"

"A creeper."

"What's a creeper?"

"I say, young gentleman, where do you go to school?" said Josh in indignant tones.

"London University," said the boy quickly. "Why?"

"And you don't know what a creeper is?"

"No," said the boy, laughing. "What is it?"

"Oh! we call a small kind of grapnel, or four-armed anchor, a creeper,"

said Will.

"Oh!"

"Then when we've let down the line with one creeper we pay out the rest."

"Pay out the rest?"

"A mussy me!" said Josh to himself.

"Well, run it out over the side of the boat we're in, and row away till we've got all the line with the baited hooks in."

"Yes," said the boy eagerly; "and then you put down the other anchor. I see."

"That's her," said Josh approvingly.

"Well," said the boy excitedly, "and how do you know when you've got a bite?"

"Oh! we don't know."

"Then how do you catch your fish?"

"They catch themselves," said Will. "We row then to the other end of the line and draw it up."

"How do you know where it is?"

"Why, by the buoy, of course," said Josh. "We always have a buoy, and you think that's a boy like you, I know."

"Oh no! I don't," said d.i.c.k, shaking his head and laughing. "Come, I'm not such a c.o.c.kney as not to know what a b-u-o-y is. But, I say, what do you do then?"

"Why, we get up the end of the line, and put fresh baits on when they're taken off, and take the fish into the boat when there are any."

"Oh, I say, what fun! Here, when are you going to put in that line?"

"Sundown," said Josh.