“What bait do you use for them?” asked Satan.
“Flies.”
Jude shrieked.
“Not live flies,” he explained: “imitation ones.” He tried to describe artificial fly-making and finished with a sense of failure as of one who had entered the lists in defense of a niggling form of business that had yet a touch of humor in it.
Then, as they talked, suddenly through the night came a sound like the boom of a big gun. Ratcliffe nearly dropped his pipe.
“That’s a fish,” said Satan.
“Sea bat,” said Jude indifferently.
“That noise?”
“Sea bat jumping. There they go again. Must be a circus of them playin’ about beyond the reefs,—big flat fish, weigh all of a ton.”
“Tails as long as themselves and eyes like dinner plates,” said Jude, “mushy brutes. Tow a ship after them if they foul the anchor—won’t they, Satan?”