der the porch in
front of their hut. Charley had asked one day why he should not smoke
too.

"A very good thing for grown men like me," answered Dick, "but very bad
for little boys. When you have been at sea a dozen years or so, you may
try if you like it. If it was to do you good I would share my last plug
with you--you know that, Charley."

"Yes, indeed I do," was the answer, and Charley never again asked for
tobacco.

They were seated, as I was saying, within the porch one evening, when
Dick, whose eyes were turned towards the boat, drawn up on the beach in
the little bay in front of them, observed--

"I have a fancy for taking a cruise farther out than we have been yet;
we shall get bigger fish, and not lose so many lines and hooks. I am
afraid we shall soon have nothing else but fish to live upon, and though
they are not bad food, yet, if there was to come a spell of foul
weather, such as we have had now and then, we should not be able to get
even them. Now what I want is to catch a good quantity, that we may
salt them down for a store, should there be nothing else to be got."

Charley was well pleased with the thoughts of a longer cruise, and early
in the morning, having carried down some cocoa-nuts and boiled roots,
with a few eggs and fish, which they cooked over night, they launched
their curiously-built boat. She was, as Dick observed, a good one to
run before a breeze, but where it came to sailing with the wind abeam,
she was apt to go as fast to leeward as she did ahead. He, however, had
made three oars, two of which he pulled himself, while he had taught
Charley to steer with the third.

Though the wind blew off the land, it being light, Dick had no doubt he
should easily be able to pull back again. Having examined the reefs
from a height in the neighbourhood, and easily making his way among
them, he reached the outer circle. Here he let down a big stone, to
serve as an anchor, attached to a long rope; but he found the water
deeper than he had expected, though, as the stone touched the bottom, he
hoped that it would hold the boat.

The lines had not been long over the side before Charley hooked a big
fish, larger than he had ever before seen. Dick helped him to haul it
in, though, as he was so doing, it nearly broke away. Dick caught two
or three, then Charley got another bite; he was again obliged to cry out
for Dick's assistance. Dick saw that, from the size of the fish, skill
would b