"By Jove, you shall try it, this very afternoon!" cried the old sailor energetically. "Dick, see that the gridiron is clean, for we'll want it by and by. Hullo, though, I'm forgetting about the rest of our catch. Let us see what we've got." While the Captain had been talking to their father, Bob and Nellie had been rummaging in the bottom of the boat, trying to make out the different fish; but, from the fact of all being coated with mud, of which the trawl's pocket was pretty well filled, in addition to its live occupants, these latter seemed all so similar at first glance as to resemble those two negro gentlemen, Pompey and Caesar, described by a sable brother as being "berry much alike, 'specially Pompey!" However, the old sailor soon sorted them out. "Half-a-dozen pair of good soles, eh? That will be a treat for your aunt Polly," he said to Miss Nell, pitching the fish as he picked them out carelessly on one side. "Some odd flounders, too, I see. They're nearly as good as our soles; and, I see also a lot of plaice and dabs, which are not bad, fried, when you can't get anything better in the same line, and--hullo, by jingo, don't touch that!" "Why, Captain?" inquired Bob, who had just taken up in his hands a soft, jelly-like, flabby thing that appeared as if it were a little white owl, some ten or twelve inches high, without any particular head or wings to speak of, although it had a short black beak, resembling a parrot's, projecting from out of its livid-hued fleshy body. "What is it?" "It's a cuttle-fish," cried the old sailor. "Drop it, my boy, at once! or--" He spoke too late; for at the same moment, the cuttle-fish deluged Bob with the inky fluid which nature has provided it with as a means of hiding its whereabouts in the water from its enemies, and from which the Romans obtained their celebrated "Tyrian dye." Nell, also, came in for a share of this over her dress, which did not by any means improve its appearance. "Never mind, though;" said the Captain to them both, by way of consolation. "What's done can't be helped!" "Ah!" remarked their father slily, "if you had been looking after the net, instead of instructing me in cookery, this wouldn't have happened." "You're quite right, Strong," replied the other, with an air of great contrition; albeit his eyes twinkled with fun and his manner was not quite that of a repentant sinner. "I've neglected my duties shamefully." With these words he set to work anew, disinterring a large skate weighing over twelve pounds from amidst the mud and refuse brought up by the trawl. The gills of this fish, in the centre of its globular body, had the most extraordinary likeness to a human face; and as the queer-looking creature puffed out these gills, it appeared, as Mr Strong pointed out, just like a fat old gentleman taking a glass of some rare and highly- recommended wine and "washing his mouth out" so as to taste it properly.