As regards fish, Tom found the island coast a mine of luxury. Wherever the water was fairly shallow they found them in shoals, and could capture them with their hands—at least Ginger Brandy could; and his method of fishing was peculiar, to say the least of it. First he divested himself of his clothes, then overboard he sprang like a frog. Holding one hand under the water, he dropped a few crumbs of biscuit from the other. The fish, by no means shy, sailed up at once, and Brandy seized them one by one slowly but surely, and threw them into the boat.
Tom was a fairly clever naturalist, but he could not name a tenth of the many strange varieties of fish caught, nor even guess the natural orders to which they belonged. Most were edible.
Some were too gaudily coloured to be otherwise than suspicious. These Brandy discarded. Others were horribly grotesque, with immense heads, diabolical faces and horns. Brandy would have nothing to say to these either.
He held a frightfully ugly specimen up one day for Tom’s inspection.
“Is he for dinner, Ginger Brandy?”
“Gully, massy; no, sah. Plaps, sah, he one debil. He no aflaid ob de fire nor de f’ying pan. Suppose I put he ober de fire, sah, his ugly mouf grow bigger, his horns grow longer, his eyes grow fierce, den he switch his tail, jump out ob de fire and gobble up bof you and me, and fly away in de smoke.”
“Brandy,” said Tom one morning after breakfast, “I’m strong enough now to explore.”
“To ’splore, sah?”
“Yes, Brandy. To explore the island.”
“Well I’se strong ’nuff to ’splore mos’ anyting, sah.”