twine its slender arms about his hand, and swiftly to take hold with a
dozen cup-like suckers. The boy uttered an exclamation of disgust, and
shook it off. Then he shuddered, laughed at himself, shuddered again. A
moment later he chose a dead squid for examination.

"Leave us look at it close," said he. "Then we'll know what a real
devil-fish is like. Sure, I've been wantin' to know that for a long,
long time."

They observed the long cylindrical body, flabby and cold, with the
broad, flap-like tail attached. The head was repulsively ugly--perhaps
because of the eyes, which were disproportionately large, brilliant,
and, in the live squid, ferocious.

A group of arms--two long, slender, tentacular arms, and eight shorter,
thicker ones--projected from the region of the mouth, which, indeed, was
set in the center of the ring they formed at the roots. They were
equipped with innumerable little suckers, were flexible and active, and
as long as the head, body and tail put together.

Closer examination revealed that there was a horny beak, like a
parrot's, in the mouth, and that on the under side of the head was a
curious tube-like structure.

"Oh, that's his squirter!" Billy explained. "When he wants to back up
he points that forward, and squirts out water so hard as he can; and
when he wants to go ahead he points it backward, and does the same
thing. That's where his ink comes from, too, when he wants to make the
water so dirty nobody can see him."

"What does he do with his beak?"

"When he gets his food in his arms he bites out pieces with his beak. He
hasn't any teeth; but he's got something just as good--a tongue like a
rasp."

"I wouldn't like to be cotched by a squid as big as a hogshead," Bobby
remarked, timidly.

"Huh!" said Billy, grimly. "He'd make short work o' _you_! Why, b'y,
they weighs half a tone apiece! I isn't much afraid, though," he added.
"They're only squid. Afore I read about them in the book I used to think
they was worse than they is--terrible ghostlike things. But they're no
worse than squids, only bigger, and----"

"They're bad enough for _me_," Bobby interrupted.

"And," Billy concluded, "they only comes up in the night or when they're
sore wounded and dyin'."

"I'm not goin' out at night, if I can help it," said Bobby, with a canny
shake of the head.

"If they was a big squid come up the harbor to your house," said Billy,
after a pause, "and got close to the rock, he could put