the rocks on the bottom, and Jim, unable to
start it by hand, was obliged to make the warp fast and have recourse to
towing. Just as it looked as if the line were about to part, the trap
let go. It yielded one "counter" and three "shorts." Also, it contained
more than a dozen brown, unhealthy-looking, membranous things, shaped
like long coin-purses, lined with rows of suckers, and with mouths at
one end.

"Sea-cucumbers! I've seen a trap full of 'em, almost to the door.
They're after the bait, like everything else."

Trap after trap was pulled, with varying success. Occasionally from a
single one three or four good-sized lobsters would be taken;
occasionally one would yield nothing at all. But the majority averaged
one "counter." Percy could not accustom himself to the seeming waste of
throwing over the "shorts."

"I should think you might sell those little fellows to the Massachusetts
boats, and nobody be the wiser for it."

"I could; but I won't. I'll make clean money or I won't make any at
all."

There was a finality in Jim's tones that closed the subject for good.
Half the traps had now been hauled and there were about seventy-five
pounds of lobsters in the tub. Spiny, egg-like sea-urchins, green
wrinkles, and an occasional flounder or lamper-eel gave variety to the
catch. There was always the hope that the next trap might yield five or
six big fellows.

"Now and then," said Jim, "you get one so large he can't crawl into a
pot. He'll be on the head, just as you start pulling, and he'll hang to
the netting until he comes to the top. After they take hold of anything,
they hate to let go."

"What's the biggest one you ever saw?" asked Lane.

"One day when I was in Rockland, a smack brought in a fifteen-pounder
she'd bought at Seal Island. But of course they grow a good deal larger
than that. The big ones don't taste nearly so good as the little ones.
After they get to be a certain age, seven or eight years, the fishermen
think, they don't 'shed.' Then you find 'em covered with barnacles,
their claws cracked into squares, all wrinkled up. Those old grubbers
belong to the offshore school; they stay outside, and never come in on
the rocks."

Percy was listening with all his ears.

"What do you mean by saying they don't 'shed'?" he asked.

"Harken to the lecture on lobsters by Professor James Spurling!"
announced Lane in stentorian tones.

The next group of traps was some distance off, so Jim had a chance