ike a seine, which you've seen, of course?"

"Yes," replied his questioner, "I have seen them dragging the seine, as
it is called, down on the beach often."

"Oh, auntie, Nell and I saw them, too, the day after that storm we had
when we first came," said Bob eagerly. "I know, because I asked the men
what they were doing, and they told me."

"There's nothing like asking for information," observed the Captain
approvingly. "It's lucky, though, those men told you at once, or you'd
have worried their lives out!"

"Sure and you may well say that," put in Mrs Gilmour. "You have to
suffer frequently from some little people's thirst for knowledge."

"I don't mind," chuckled the Captain, beaming with good-humour. "But,
to go on with my description of the trawl. You must imagine, as I have
said, an ordinary seine net, which must be a small one, and that looped
up at the corners, too, somewhat in the shape of a funnel, or rather in
the form of a cone sliced in two. The mouth of this apparatus is kept
open on its flat side by means of a pole some ten or twelve feet long,
termed the `trawl-beam,' which floats uppermost when the net is down;
while the lower side is weighted with a thick heavy piece of hawser
styled the `ground-rope,' around which the meshes of the net are woven.
A bridle or `martingale' unites the two ends of the trawl-beam."

"Yes, I see," said Bob, who was all attention, and taking the greatest
interest in the Captain's explanation. "I see."

"Well," continued the old sailor, "to this bridle there is attached a
double-sheaved block, through which runs a hundred-and-fifty fathom
rope, capable of bearing a heavy strain. But, in hauling this in, great
nicety must be observed, for, the slightest hitch or deflection will
cause the beam to turn the wrong way; when, if the net `gets on her
back,' as the fisher-folk say, all your catch is simply turned out into
`the vasty deep,' and your toil results in a case of `Love's labour
lost!'"

"But, what do you do with the net and beam, when it's all ready?" asked
Bob. "You haven't told us that, yet."

"Why, drop it over the side as soon as you get out to the fishing-
ground," replied the Captain laconically; "and now, I hope, you
understand all about it?"

"Oh yes," responded his listeners with alacrity; all, that is, but Mrs
Gilmour, who assented somewhat dubiously, as if she could not quite
grasp the idea, requiring the whole thing to be explained to her ove