y're whopping great chaps, arn't they, like
cod-fish pulled out long?"

"Well, no," said Will, "they're more like long ling; but we can't catch
big ones on a line like this--only small."

"But there are big ones here, arn't there?"

"Oh, yes!" said Will; "off there among the rocks sometimes, six and
seven foot long."

"But why don't you catch big ones on a line like that?"

"Line like that!" broke in Josh; "why, a conger would put his teeth
through it in a moment. You're obliged to have a single line for a
conger, with a wire-snooded hook and swivels, big hooks bound with wire,
something like this here."

As he spoke he held out the hook, just finished as to its binding on.

"And what's that for?" cried the boy, taking the hook.

"Gaffing of 'em," said Josh; but he pronounced it "_gahfin'_ of 'em."

"Oh, I do want to go fishing!" cried the boy eagerly. "What are you
going to do with that long-line?"

"Lay it out in the bay," said Will, "with a creeper at each end."

"A what?"

"A creeper."

"What's a creeper?"

"I say, young gentleman, where do you go to school?" said Josh in
indignant tones.

"London University," said the boy quickly. "Why?"

"And you don't know what a creeper is?"

"No," said the boy, laughing. "What is it?"

"Oh! we call a small kind of grapnel, or four-armed anchor, a creeper,"
said Will.

"Oh!"

"Then when we've let down the line with one creeper we pay out the
rest."

"Pay out the rest?"

"A mussy me!" said Josh to himself.

"Well, run it out over the side of the boat we're in, and row away till
we've got all the line with the baited hooks in."

"Yes," said the boy eagerly; "and then you put down the other anchor. I
see."

"That's her," said Josh approvingly.

"Well," said the boy excitedly, "and how do you know when you've got a
bite?"

"Oh! we don't know."

"Then how do you catch your fish?"

"They catch themselves," said Will. "We row then to the other end of
the line and draw it up."

"How do you know where it is?"

"Why, by the buoy, of course," said Josh. "We always have a buoy, and
you think that's a boy like you, I know."

"Oh no! I don't," said Dick, shaking his head and laughing. "Come, I'm
not such a Cockney as not to know what a b-u-o-y is. But, I say, what
do you do then?"

"Why, we get up the end of the line, and put fresh baits on when they're
taken off, and take the fish into the boat when there are any."

"Oh, I say, what