Mr Temple was standing beside Will, who had been on board the lugger and returned with a little basket containing a dozen or two of the little oily fish, which looked like small large-scaled herrings, but richer and fatter and of tenderer skin.
“Wonderful bait,” said Will. “We can catch no end to-night with these.”
They waited to see the business begin—the said business being the rapid unloading of the pilchards, which were borne along the pier to one of the long low pilchard-houses to be regularly stacked somewhat after the fashion of drying bricks, and salted ready for packing in barrels and sending to the Mediterranean ports.
But after the first inspection the sight of baskets full of silvery pilchard began to grow monotonous, and Dick exclaimed:
“I say, father, it must be breakfast time now.”
Breakfast time it was, and after arranging to be back at the pier in an hour, they sought the old purser’s cottage, from whose open window the extremely fragrant odour of broiled ham was floating out, ready to act like a magnet upon the sensations of a couple of hungry lads.