“Quite fair, Dick,” he replied. “It seems to be the law of the sea; every fish eats those less than itself and gets eaten in its turn. The only thing with them is, that each one has some chance for its life, and lives as long as it can.”
“I see once a very rum kind of a squid,” said Josh, who, while the mackerel catching went on and no more curiosities were turned out, seemed disposed to be communicative. “Reg’lar great one he was, at low water out Lizard way.”
“Octopus, perhaps,” said Mr Temple.
“No, sir—sort o’ squid-like, only very different. He was just like a dirty bag with eight arms hanging away from it, all covered like with suckers, and there was two great ugly eyes.”
“It was an octopus from your description, my man,” said Mr Temple.
“Was it now?” said Josh. “Well, I shouldn’t wonder, for it was a horrid gashly thing, and when I saw it first it was sitting in a pool of clear water, with a rock hanging over it, looking at me with its big eyes, and filling itself full of water and blowing it out.”
“How large was it?”
“’Bout as big as a bladder buoy, sir, with long arms all round twissening and twining about like snakes; and when I made up my mind that whether it come out and bit me or whether it didn’t, I’d stir it up, and I poked at it with a stick, if it didn’t shut itself up like and shoot through the water like an umbrella.”
“Undoubtedly an octopus,” said Mr Temple; “that is its habit.”
“Is it now?” said Josh. “Well, I shouldn’t have thought it. Seemed queer like for a thing with eight long legs to go zizzling through the water like a shut-up umbrella.”