One day, for example, Paddy came off from shore in great glee. He and a messmate had been spending the day in the woods.
"You'll niver guess, sorr, what I've brought you to-day. Sure, I'd have caught it alive if I could; but he wouldn't stop, so I shot it, and I've got it here in my cap right enough."
"And what is it, Paddy?"
"It's what they calls a hybrute [hybrid], sorr, and it's neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. It's got the body of a snake, and two legs like a lizard. Och, sure, sorr, it's a quare, quare baste indade."
"Well, turn it out, Paddy, and don't excite my curiosity any more."
Paddy did as he was told, and carefully opened his cap on top of the skylight, and out dropped what certainly looked like a "very quare baste indeed." It was getting dusk, so this added to the uncanny appearance of the creature.
Sturdy, Jack, and even Captain Gillespie crowded round.
"Ugh!" said the latter; "I wouldn't touch it for the world."
Dr. Reikie was delighted.
"Paddy," he said, "you're a jewel."