e net was declared and proved to be empty, the damaged fish it
contained being thrown out upon the sands, where the waves of the
flowing tide kept curling over them, and sweeping the refuse away, to be
snapped up by the shoals of hungry fish that came up the bay, the
thousands that had been captured that morning being as nothing in the
immensity of the ocean population.

"Home?" said Dick suddenly, as Mr Temple said something about going.
"Of course. Why, we haven't had our dinner!"

"What is for dinner, I wonder?" said Arthur.

"For one thing, fish," said Mr Temple, "for your friend Will went to
the inn an hour ago with a basket of the best; so let's go and see if
they are done."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

MR. ARTHUR TEMPLE IS NOT IN THE LEAST ALARMED.

"Father," cried Dick, bursting into the room where Mr Temple was busy
with weights, scales, test-tubes, a lamp, and blow-pipe, trying the
quality of some metals--"father, here's Will Marion and Mr Marion's man
Josh come to see if we'd like to go with them to-night conger-fishing."

"To-night?"

"Yes; they won't bite very well of a day. He knows a place where--"

"Who is _he_?" said Mr Temple.

"I mean Will, father; he knows of a place where the congers are
plentiful, and Josh says he'll take the greatest care of us."

"Whom do you mean by us?" said Mr Temple.

"Arthur and me, father. Taff wants to go very badly."

"I hardly know what to say, Dick," said Mr Temple thoughtfully. "Last
time you came to grief, and had a narrow escape."

"Oh, but that isn't likely to occur again, father!" said Dick. "It
would be such a treat, too."

"Humph! what am I to do, my boy--coddle you up, and keep you always
under my eye; or give you a little latitude, and trust to your
discretion to take care of yourself and your brother?"

"Give me a little latitude, father--and longitude too," added Dick with
a laugh in his eye.

"Well, I will, Dick; but you must be very careful, my lad, especially of
Arthur."

"Oh, but Taff is such a solemn old gentleman with his stick-up collar
and his cane that he ought to take care of me, father!"

"Perhaps he ought," said Mr Temple; "but I tell you to take care of
him."

"All right, father! I will."

"By the way, Dick, that lad Marion seems a very decent fellow."

"Decent, father! Why, he's a splendid chap. He has rough hands and
wears fisherman's clothes and does hard work, but he has been to a big
grammar-school in Devons