he sweeps so that it stuck well outboard. "Now, my
lad," said Mr. Trapp, turning to me, "you've been a very good lad
'pon the whole, and I see you fighting with the tackers down 'pon the
quay and holding your own. But they can swim, and you can't, and
it's wearing your spirit. So here's a chance to larn. I can't larn'
ee myself, for the fashion's come up since I was a youngster.
Can you swim, Morgan?"

Morgan could not; and old Isaac said he couldn't see the use of it--
if you capsized, it only lengthened out the trouble.

"Well, then, you must larn yourself," said Mr. Trapp to me.
"I've heard that pigs and men are the only animals it don't come to
by nature. And that's a scandal however you look at it."

So strip I did, and was girt with the belt under my armpits, tied to
a rope, and slipped over the side in fear and trembling. I swallowed
a pint or two of salt water and wept (but they could not see this,
though they watched me curiously), I dare say, half a pint of it back
in tears of fright. I knew by observation how legs and arms should
be worked, but made disheartening efforts to put it into practice.
At length, utterly ashamed, I was hauled out and congratulated: at
which I stared.

"As for the swimmin'," said Isaac, "I can't call to mind that I've
seen worse: but for pluck, considering the number of sharks at about
this season, I couldn't ask better of his age."

I had not thought of sharks--supposed them, indeed, to inhabit the
tropics only. We caught one towards sunset, after it had fouled all
our lines, and smashed its head with the unshipped tiller as it came
to the surface. It measured five feet and a little over, and we
lashed it alongside the gunwale and carried it home in triumph next
morning (having shot the nets at sundown and slept and hauled them up
empty at sunrise--the pilchards being scarce as yet, though a few had
been caught off the Eddystone). I don't suppose the shark would have
interfered with my bath, but I gave myself airs on the strength of
him.

CHAPTER IV.

MISS PLINLIMMON.

Late in August, and a week or two before Mr. Trapp changed his
signboard and resumed his proper business, I was idling by the edge
of the Barbican one evening when a boy, whose eye I had blacked
recently, charged up behind me and pushed me over. I pretended to be
drowning, and sank theatrically as he and half a dozen others,
conveniently naked, plunged to the rescue. They dived for my body