ng at the end of my line, and
gave it a jerk just as if it had been a brook trout, hard to catch.

"Oh, goodness!" I just dropped the line and screamed like everything,
scared half to death. If ever an innocent female caught a claw-footed
imp, I came near doing it then. Why the animal, varmint, double and
twisted serpent--I don't know what to call it--clung to the bait till I
hauled him clear out of the water, and then fell back with a big sprawl
and an awful splash, sinking down again like a great mammoth spider that
made the water bubble with disgust.

"What was it? What was it?" I said, turning my scared face on Mr. Burke.
"What kind of young sea-devil is this?"

He laughed, and laid down the net he had just taken up.

"You pulled too quick," says he. "Crabs are like women."

"Like women," I shrieked. "What, those horrid things? Sir, I thank you!"

My voice shook so I could hardly get the words out with proper irony. A
generous rage in behalf of my sex possessed me.

"You did not hear me out," says he, pleasant as a sweet apple. "I was
going to say crabs were like women in this respect. They must be led
along, enticed, persuaded up to the bait."

"Oh!" says I, "that is a sentiment I can appreciate, but the comparison
is dreadful."

"There is hardly anything in nature which would not be dreadful compared
to some females that I know of," says he.

I laid one hand on my bosom and bowed, but the next instant I felt one
of those scraggly fiends pulling at my line, and I drew it softly in,
hand-over-hand. Oh, how the beastly thing crept and crawled, and spread
its scraggles as it nibbled and rose with the bait! I declare it made
the flesh creep on my bones.

"That's right, draw gently--lure him up. Ho!"

As he spoke Mr. Burke just slid his net under the varmint, and flashed
him up into the air, bait and all.

Sisters, there is no use in talking; if these creatures they call crabs
ain't great salt-sea spiders, no such animals exist; and eels ain't
fish, that's all.

Oh, I wish you could see them crawl up through the sea-grass and spread
themselves. I declare it is just awful.

Well, down went this crab--which they all gloried in, being a great big
gridiron of a fellow--into a hole in one end of the boat, and out went
my bait after another.

At one great pull I brought up two wapping big fellows at a time, and
trolled them on while Mr. Burke scooped them up. Chasing dragon flies in
the old times was nothi