must get a lucky shot sometimes."

"Oh yes, but there's something more than that," said Rodd. "When I have
been amongst the fishermen in Plymouth, and over in Saltash, I have
wondered to find how exact they were about the weather, and how whenever
they wouldn't take us out fishing they were always right. They seemed
to know that bad weather was coming on."

"Oh, of course," said the skipper. "Why, my lad, if you got your living
by going out in your boat, don't you think the first thing you would try
to learn would be to make it your living?"

"Why, of course," cried Rodd.

"Ah, you don't mean the same as I do. I mean, make it your living and
not your dying."

"Oh, I see."

"You wouldn't want," continued the skipper, "to go out at times that
might mean having them as you left at home standing on the shore looking
out to sea for a boat as would never come back."

"No," said the boy, with something like a sigh. "I know what you mean.
Ah, it has been very horrible sometimes, and all those little
churchyards at the different villages about the coast with that regular
`Drowned at sea' over and over and over again."

"Right, my lad. Things go wrong sometimes; but that's what makes
sailors and fishermen get to learn what the moon says and the sun and
the clouds, and the bit of haze that gathers sometimes off the coast
means. Why, if you'd looked out yesterday afternoon when the wind went
down and the glint of sunshine come out, there was a nasty dirty look in
the sky. You wait a bit and keep your eyes open, and put that and that
together, and as you grow up you'll find that it isn't so hard as you'd
think to say what the weather is going to be to-morrow. You'll often be
wrong, same as I am."

"Ah! then I shall begin at once," cried Rodd eagerly, as he looked
sharply round. "Well, it can't go on pelting down like this with hail
coming now and then in showers. Showers come and go."

"Right!" said the skipper, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Oh!" cried Rodd sharply.

"Hullo! Why, you don't mean to say that hurt?"

"Hurt! No," cried Rodd, shaking his head violently. "You shot a lot of
cold water right up into my ear."

"Oh, that will soon dry up. Well, what do you say the weather's going
to be?"

"The storm soon over, and a fine day to-morrow."

"Done?" asked the skipper.

"Oh yes; but mind, that's only a try."

"Then it's my turn now, youngster, so here goes. I say we shall have
worse weat