father, Bob and Nellie had
been rummaging in the bottom of the boat, trying to make out the
different fish; but, from the fact of all being coated with mud, of
which the trawl's pocket was pretty well filled, in addition to its live
occupants, these latter seemed all so similar at first glance as to
resemble those two negro gentlemen, Pompey and Caesar, described by a
sable brother as being "berry much alike, 'specially Pompey!"

However, the old sailor soon sorted them out.

"Half-a-dozen pair of good soles, eh? That will be a treat for your
aunt Polly," he said to Miss Nell, pitching the fish as he picked them
out carelessly on one side. "Some odd flounders, too, I see. They're
nearly as good as our soles; and, I see also a lot of plaice and dabs,
which are not bad, fried, when you can't get anything better in the same
line, and--hullo, by jingo, don't touch that!"

"Why, Captain?" inquired Bob, who had just taken up in his hands a soft,
jelly-like, flabby thing that appeared as if it were a little white owl,
some ten or twelve inches high, without any particular head or wings to
speak of, although it had a short black beak, resembling a parrot's,
projecting from out of its livid-hued fleshy body. "What is it?"

"It's a cuttle-fish," cried the old sailor. "Drop it, my boy, at once!
or--"

He spoke too late; for at the same moment, the cuttle-fish deluged Bob
with the inky fluid which nature has provided it with as a means of
hiding its whereabouts in the water from its enemies, and from which the
Romans obtained their celebrated "Tyrian dye."

Nell, also, came in for a share of this over her dress, which did not by
any means improve its appearance.

"Never mind, though;" said the Captain to them both, by way of
consolation. "What's done can't be helped!"

"Ah!" remarked their father slily, "if you had been looking after the
net, instead of instructing me in cookery, this wouldn't have happened."

"You're quite right, Strong," replied the other, with an air of great
contrition; albeit his eyes twinkled with fun and his manner was not
quite that of a repentant sinner. "I've neglected my duties
shamefully."

With these words he set to work anew, disinterring a large skate
weighing over twelve pounds from amidst the mud and refuse brought up by
the trawl.

The gills of this fish, in the centre of its globular body, had the most
extraordinary likeness to a human face; and as the queer-looking
creature