"It's jerking," she whispered breathlessly, "Oh, I'm sure there's something on it..." and as she let go the line he gave it a jerk on his own account, then drew it quickly in and a plump astonished fish lay jumping and twisting on the deck. It was over a foot in length, very prettily coloured, dark blue with many cross-streaks and silvery below. "Mackerel, I think," he said, and promptly knocked it on the head, to end its troubles and allow him the further use of his hook. "The poor little thing! I'm so sorry," she said, looking mournfully down at the iridescent beauty. "I don't think I like fishing." "You'll think better of it when it's fried." "I couldn't touch it," with a vigorous shake of the head. So he asked her to go down and make some cakes, and then caught another fish of a different kind the moment the bait reached the water, and a couple more for breakfast next day, and was thereby much reassured as to the future of their larder. He cleaned two of his fish and fried them with some pork fat as soon as she had made her cakes, and proceeded to reason her out of her prejudice. "You have eaten fish all your life, haven't you?" he asked. "Ye-es." "Well, every fish has had to be caught before you could eat it. They generally leave them to die. But even that is probably only similar to our drowning, which is said to be about as pleasant a way as there is of going." "It's horribly cold if you're lashed to a mast,"--with a reminiscent shiver. "And being rubbed back to life is just as bad." "And we are more merciful, because we kill them at once." "It's horrible to think that everything we eat, except things that grow of course, has got to suffer death for us." "But you have always eaten these things without being troubled about it." "The killing has never been brought home to me so closely before." "It's Nature's law, you see. Everything feeds on something else. These fishes feed on smaller things. And how do you know that when you cut a cabbage or a potato----" "How I wish I had the chance!" "So do I, most heartily. But how do you know they don't feel it just as much, in their own dull way, as the pig did from which we get our pork?" She shook her head and sighed. "We can't get away from it, I suppose," and tasted the fish and found it good, and ate quite heartily though with an appearance of protest. "You see," he said. "Some fishes lay millions of eggs at a time. If they all grew up the sea would be choked with them, as the earth would be with animals if they weren't killed off. Besides, unless I am mistaken in my recollection of our old parson's reading, all these things were expressly provided for man's sustenance, so we are only doing our duty in eating them." "All the same, I think I will let you do all the catching and killing."