“Let him alone, Wolfe. It makes him feel a great deal worse not to be noticed at all. Nothing would please him better than to get us into a muss, and to have the skipper order us off about our business.” “Well, I don’t know but what you are right, Breeze; but what a queer fellow you are, anyhow. It seems to me you must have been born with a wise head on your shoulders. Here I am a year older than you, but most any one hearing us talk would take you for the old boy and me for the young one.” They rowed steadily while they talked, and soon reached the little canvas flag that marked the buoy at the outer end of their trawl. “I wonder what luck we’re going to have?” said Breeze. “What I like best about fishing is the not knowing what you are going to catch, and the thinking whenever you have bad-luck you may have better next time.” “I expect that is the most interesting part about most things in this world,” said Wolfe; “but with all my luck I can’t start this anchor. It’s got foul of something. I expect we’ll have to rig up the hurdy-gurdy.” This was a small iron winch that could be set up in the bows of the dory, and which is often found necessary in heaving up heavy trawls. With its aid the refractory anchor was soon got aboard. The buoy had already been picked up, and at length the trawl began to appear. Now came the exciting moment. What would it bring? Would every hook have its fish, or would they be few and far between? They would not even consider the possibility of its being what fishermen describe as a “water haul,” or one bringing them nothing but empty hooks. Wolfe stood forward in the dory pulling in the line, while Breeze stood a few feet behind him, ready to take off the fish and stow the trawl in its tubs. “Here he is!” cried Wolfe at last. “Number one a cod, and a jolly big fellow at that. My eye! but he must weigh fifty pounds at least. Our luck’s begun good at any rate. Bear a hand here with the gaff, Breeze. Quick! There, my hearty! lie still where you are put, and we’ll soon give you plenty of company.” After this came two or three bare hooks, and then a small halibut. Then half a dozen more codfish, one close after the other, and next only the skeleton of a fish with its bones picked as clean as though there had never been a particle of flesh on them. It astonished Breeze greatly, and he said, “Well! I never knew before that a fish’s skeleton would take bait. How hungry it must have been! It does look rather thin and gaunt, for a fact,” he added, laughing. “He was something a good deal better than a skeleton when he took that hook,” explained Wolfe, who had hauled trawls before. “The sand-fleas have made a meal off of him, and there must have been a pretty lot of them to go through him so quickly and completely.” “Sand-fleas?” repeated Breeze, inquiringly. “Yes, just such chaps as you may see almost any time hopping on a beach.”