Josh kindly. "They be gashly ugly things to tackle sometimes, but--"

"I'm not afraid," said Arthur indignantly.

"Not you, sir. Why should you be?" said Josh. "We can manage them. A
big one has a nasty way of his own of getting loose in the boat and
wriggling himself all about under the thwarts--"

Arthur involuntarily began to draw up his legs, as he felt as if one
were already loose in the bottom of the boat.

"But just you look ye here," continued Josh, opening the little locker
in the stern of the boat. "This is how I serves the big jockeys who'd
be likely to give any trouble. I just give them a cut behind the head
with this little fellow, and then they lie quiet enough."

As he spoke he showed Arthur a little axe with a very small head, and an
edge as keen as a knife.

"That's too much for congers," added Josh.

"I say, how cruel to the poor things!" said Dick laughingly; but Josh
took it in the most serious way.

"Well, I have thought that 'bout the gashly conger, Master Dick, sir,"
said Josh; "but I don't know as it be. You see, they're caught, and it
puts 'em out of their misery, like, at once."

"But it's cruel to catch them," said Dick.

Josh scratched his head.

"A mussy me, Master Dick, sir! that's a thing as has puzzled me lots o'
times when I've been hooking and killing fish; but then, you see, it's
for victuals, and everybody's got to live."

"So have the fish," laughed Dick.

"So they have, sir; but you see here, I catches and kills a conger, or a
pollack, or a gurnet, or a bass. Suppose I hadn't killed it--what
then?"

"Why, it would be swimming about in the sea as happy as could be."

"Yes, Master Dick, sir; but what else would it be doing?"

"Basking in the sunshine, Josh."

"P'r'aps so, sir; but, a mussy me! he'd be chasing and hunting and
eating hundreds of little fish every day; so you see if I catches one
big one, I saves hundreds of little ones' lives."

"I never thought of that," said Dick.

"Josh and I have often talked about it," said Will seriously. "It seems
cruel to catch and kill things; but they are always catching and killing
others, and every bird and fish you see here is as cruel as can be.
There goes a cormorant; he'll be swimming and diving all day long
catching fish, so will the shags; and all those beautiful grey-and-white
gulls you can see on the rock there, live upon the fish they catch on
the surface of the water."

"Then if we keep the conge