“Think o’ that, now!” cried Tom. “Why, I was wondering whether a fellow couldn’t go down in a diving-bell and see what the bottom was like, and look at the fishes—say, Mas’r Harry, some of ’em must be whoppers.”
“Ay, my lad,” said the same sailor who had before spoken, and he rested his arms on the bulwark and stared down at us; “there’s some big chaps out at sea here.”
“Could we catch some of ’em?” asked Tom.
“Oh, yes,” said the sailor. “Dessay you could, my lad, but I wouldn’t advise you to try a sixpenny fishing-line with a cork float and a three-joint hazel rod with a whalebone top—you know that sort, eh?”
“Know it? I should think I do,” cried Tom. “So does Mas’r Harry here. We used to ketch the gudgeons like hooroar down in the sharp water below the mill up at home.”
“Ah!” said the sailor, “so used I when I was a boy; but there ain’t no gudgeons here.”
“What sort o’ fish are there, then?” said Tom.
“Oh, all sorts: bonito, and albicore, and flying-fish, sometimes dolphins and sharks.”
“Any whales?” cried Tom, winking at me.
“Sometimes; not very often, my lad,” said the sailor quietly. “They lies up in the cold water, more among the ice. We’re getting every day more into the warm.”