"My aunt! don't you know a dogfish when you see it?"
"Is that a dogfish? All I know about 'em is that they make you squeamish. Fact! My cousin told me: a chap always running some craze or other. Once it was science: thought he'd like to be a B.Sc. Biology was in it. He bought a microscope and a swagger set of dissecting instruments: they have to cut up all sorts of strange beasts, you know. First came a frog."
"Ugh! Slimy!" muttered one of his companions.
"Well, he liked it: fact! Said it was a beautiful little creature inside. Then came a mussel: he had no end of a job finding its nervous system or whatever it was. Then was the turn of the dogfish. I don't know whether this fish had been too long away from home, or whether it's naturally offensive, like the skunk: but whatever it was, my cousin told me that when he put in the scalpel--well, he ran out of the room and decided to go in for philosophy instead."
The speakers, though clad in nondescript garments that might have been taken, at a distance, for Greek, were obviously Englishmen. Four of their companions in the boat were of the same nationality, and anyone who had ever spent a few days in a British naval port would have declared, with the first glance at their keen bronzed faces, that they were British seamen in disguise. The remaining five men in the vessel were as obviously genuine Greeks; but a trained ear would have recognised their speech as the Greek of Cyprus rather than Mitylene.
The fishing, or shall we say the pretence of fishing, was kept up until it was almost dark.
"Time to be off, old chap," said the man who had recoiled at the mention of a frog.
"Yes, I suppose so," said the other without much enthusiasm. He took off his outer garments, and replaced them by the loose European costume which is affected by the modern Greek merchant--wide trousers, a jacket that looks as though it were never meant to be buttoned, a shapeless soft hat, and the inevitable touch of colour in a blue cummerbund. Finally he stuck upon his upper lip a long, soft, black moustache.
"By George, you look a regular Levantine--not to say levanter," cried his companion. "In that get-up you could persuade any simple Turk that chalk's cheese. The moustache is a master-stroke: wonderful how it transforms a fellow. I'd like to know the reason why army chaps are encouraged to cultivate 'em, whereas they're strictly forbidden in the King's navy."
He continued talking, apparently with the idea of keeping up his own and his companion's spirits. Meanwhile the vessel, which had put about just before darkness fell, as if to run back to Mitylene, once more beat up the gulf, edging gradually into Turkish waters. In about an hour it had arrived, according to the calculation of the Greek skipper, within about two miles of the coast. Under the starlit sky the hills loomed black in the distance.