ff then!
Lucky for me you were not using the edge of your hatchet."

"Beg your pardon, I'm sure," apologised the Captain. "But these brutes
are uncommonly tough."

"More than my arm is," said Mr Strong ruefully, rubbing this member
tenderly. "What sort of beast is it--not a real shark, surely? I
always imagined those beggars to be very much bigger."

"No," replied the other, satisfied from the net being now still that he
had "settled" his victim. "It is what is called a `fox-shark,' or dog-
fish."

"Ah," exclaimed Bob, climbing down from the rigging now that he saw all
danger was over, "I thought I heard it bark just like a dog when you and
dad hauled up the trawl."

"So did I," chimed in Nellie, likewise coming to the stern again from
her place of refuge. "It sounded just like Rover's bark when he's
sometimes shut up for being naughty."

"You are both right," said the Captain, who, with the assistance of
their father, had now lifted the beam and net over the side into the
well of the boat and was busy unfolding the meshes of the net. "The
brute not only barks, but bites, too, if he gets a chance."

"Oh!" cried Bob and Nell together; and they, with Dick, waited anxiously
to see the monster disclosed--a deep-drawn "O-o-oh!"

"There!" ejaculated the Captain a moment after, when he had extracted
the dead body of the dog-fish, nearly five feet long, from the net and
turned it over with his foot so that they should see its wide shark-
mouth and rows of little teeth set on edge, looking like so many small-
tooth combs arranged parallel to each other. "What do you say to that
for a nibble, eh?"

"Is it any good?" asked the barrister, thinking that the dog-fish had a
sort of resemblance to a good-sized pike, with the exception of course
of its head, which, however, the old sailor had so battered about with
his hatchet that the animal would not have been recognised by its
nearest relative. "Not up to much, I should think!"

"Well, I have heard of sailors eating shark on a pinch, but I've got no
stomach for it myself; and all it's fit for is to be chucked overboard,"
replied the Captain, carrying out his suggestion without further delay,
grumbling as he added-- "The brute has spoilt our haul, too, confound
it, and damaged our net!"

It was as the Captain said, there being nothing found in the pocket of
the trawl, beyond the carcase he had just consigned to its native
element, save some mud and a few oyster-s