rocks
for tautog and rock-bass. The boys all had poles; but the girls said
they would be content to cast their lines from the rock and hope for
nibbles from the elusive blackfish.

The _Miraflame_ was a roomy craft and well furnished. When they started
at nine o'clock the party numbered eleven, besides the boatman and his
assistant. To the surprise of Ruth--and it was remarked in whispers by
the other girls, too--Phineas, the boatkeeper, had chosen Jack Crab to
assist him in the management of the motor boat.

"Jack doesn't have to be at the light till dark. The old lady gets
along all right alone," explained Phineas. "And it ain't many of these
longshoremen who know how to handle a motor. Jack's used to machinery."

He seemed to feel that it was necessary to excuse himself for hiring the
hairy man. But Heavy only said:

"Well, as long as he behaves himself I don't care. But I didn't
suppose you liked the fellow, Phin."

"I don't. It was Hobson's choice, Miss," returned the sailor.

Phineas, the girls found, was a very pleasant and entertaining man.
And he knew all about fishing. He had supplied the bait for tautog,
and the girls and boys of the party, all having lived inland, learned
many things that they hadn't known before.

"Look at this!" cried Madge Steele, the first to discover a miracle.
"He says this bait for tautog is scallops! Now, that quivering,
jelly-like body is never a scallop. Why, a scallop is a firm, white
lump----"

"It's a mussel," said Heavy, laughing.

"It's only the 'eye' of the scallop you eat, Miss," explained
Phineas.

"Now I know just as much as I did before," declared Madge. "So I eat a
scallop's _eye_, do I? We had them for breakfast this very morning--with
bacon."

"So you did, Miss. I raked 'em up myself yesterday afternoon,"
explained Phineas. "You eat the 'eye,' but these are the bodies, and
they are the reg'lar natural food of the tautog, or blackfish."

"The edible part of the scallop is that muscle which adheres to the
shell--just like the muscle that holds the clam to its shell," said
Heavy, who, having spent several summers at the shore, was better
informed than her friends.

Phineas showed the girls how to bait their hooks with the soft bodies of
the scallop, warning them to cover the point of the hooks well, and to
pull quickly if they felt the least nibble.

"The tautog is a small-mouthed fish--smaller, even, than the bass the
boys are going to cast for. So, wh