“Don’t know,” said Dick, looking at a curious pale-green mottled fish of two or three pounds weight. It was something like a perch in shape, but longer and more regular, and unprovided with the sharp back fin.
“Do you know what it is, papa?” asked Arthur.
“No, my boy, I am not learned in these west-country fishes. What is it, my man?”
“It’s a rock-fish, sir, that must have lost its way, for they are not often caught away from the rock,” replied Will. “It’s the wrasse, sir; some of them are very brightly coloured.”
“’Tain’t,” said Josh gruffly. “What do you want to tell the gentleman wrong for? It’s a wraagh, sir—a curner.”
“They call them wraaghs or curners, sir,” explained Will, colouring a little; “but the name in the natural history’s wrasse.”
“Then nat’ral history’s wrong,” said Josh, in an ill-used way. “A mussy me! as if I didn’t know what a wraagh was.”
“Want any squid, Josh?” cried one of the fishermen.
“Ay, hand ’em over,” said Josh. “They’ll do for bait.”
“Got three of ’em,” said the man, dashing his great landing-net about in the water for some reason that Dick did not understand, and directly after three curious looking, long, slender creatures of the cuttle-fish tribe were in Dick’s net, and he was just drawing them in when—spatter!—one of them discharged a shower of black inky fluid, a good deal of which fell upon Arthur’s trousers, and filled him with disgust.