"Well, I don't see why. She is very fond of poetry. But if she would not like it, you should not have said it. But don't be so distressed. I will promise not to tell her; because I am sure that you meant no harm. Oh, here is my first shrimping-pool!" "I will sooner bite my tongue out," thought I to myself, as in humble confusion I unbound the nets--"than utter another syllable of admiration. What a fool I am! But who could help it?" This put me on my very best behaviour, for a while; and even when she slipped upon an oozy slab, and nearly fell into a pool a foot deep, I did not hold her up, any more than I could help. And after that, being under orders not to use my net (which I began with, upside down) until I knew something about it; but rather to watch how she managed, and to learn to do the like,--not an inch of advantage did I try to take, but with scrupulous honour held my net betwixt us, and smiled as if my face was as stiff as were my hands. "I am afraid you don't enjoy this work;" she said. "I am afraid of enjoying it too much;" said I. And that made her laugh; for she had not the least idea of the darkness of my meaning. "Now, you may fish upon your own account," she told me; "you see how you must draw the net along beneath the ledges, with the hinder part of the rim kept higher, to brush the rock so that they can't get back over it; and go well in under all the fringes of the weeds; and then up with the other rim, and fetch it out briskly. Now, you fish a little; while I look on, and applaud you, if honesty and facts permit. You shall have this large pool all to yourself, and it is the best among all the rocks. And you can manage Roly's net, which is half again the size of mine, you see. Now, I particularly want two dozen prawns, and they are not at all plentiful on this coast. I have only got seven yet, with all these shrimps. But everybody says that you are so lucky; and I shall believe it, if you catch one prawn; they are much quicker to get away than shrimps, and so it requires more skill to catch them. Well, I declare! You have got at least a dozen. I never saw so many in one haul before. Let me take them out, or they will be sure to jump away from you. Oh, what a very spiteful creature!" A very large prawn, with no sense of the beautiful--at least as existing in the race that boils him--had rasped her most exquisite forefinger (which looked in the water as pellucid as himself) with the vile long crock-saw, which he carried on his head. And what made it the more meritorious on her part, she held fast to him still, and dropped him into the bag. "How wonderfully brave you are!" I cried; "it is bleeding, two or three large drops. Put it into your mouth, and suck out the poison. Oh, how I should like to do it for you! Don't be so intrepid! You never can tell. He may have been living with a water-snake. I could tell you such stories, if it would stop bleeding. Let me tear up my handkerchief, and bind it."