The man drew something out of the hencoop and threw it back into the cove. It flashed in the sunlight as it fell, and Tom wondered if it was an egg. Something else was taken out and thrown into the dory. Then, presently, the hencoop was lifted over the side again and sank out of sight. The man took up his oars and started toward the Vagabond, but he hadn’t gone far when he again ceased rowing and prepared to produce another hen-coop from the vasty deep. That was too much for Tom. He seized the oars, drew the tender alongside, and tumbled in. Then he headed for the dory. When he drew near the second hencoop was coming into sight. Tom leaned on his oars and opened conversation.
“Good morning,” he said. The man in the dory looked up and nodded.
“Mornin’,” he answered.
Then the hencoop was pulled over the side of the dory and rested across it, and Tom saw that instead of chickens it contained fish. It was fashioned of laths, was rounding on top, and at one end a funnel of netting took the place of the laths.
“What do you call that?” asked Tom.
“This? That’s a lobster pot. Never see one before?”
Tom shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. I thought it was a hencoop.”
The lobsterman chuckled as he undid the door of the trap and thrust in his arm. Out came a handful of small fish, which were thrown into a pail in the dory. Then one or two larger fish were tossed overboard, and last of all a fine big greenish-black lobster was produced. Tom paddled nearer and saw that a box in the dory was already half full of lobsters which were shuffling their claws about and blinking their protruding eyes. Another pail held fish for bait, and after the pot was cleared out new bait was placed in it and it was once more let down at the end of a rope. Tom now saw that the surface end of the rope was attached to a white wooden float.
“Not much there, was there?” said the fisherman as he took up his oars. “You come over to the next one and I’ll show you some lobsters.”