There were two rooms in the seal-house, one at the back for the animals, and one in front for the boat, fish-lines and crates. The seal quarters had no outside door, the only exit being into the front room.
Father, unusually tired one night after we had both been out all day for fish, went down alone to feed the seals. It was nearly dark, and he closed the outside door without catching it. When he opened the inside door and began to distribute the bass, Nab took advantage of the dusk to steal every fish he could get his nose in reach of. It seemed impossible to get a mouthful to any other seal in the lot; and father, at last quite out of patience, gave him a smart cut over his stubby little ears with the training whip.
Nab gave a shrill yelp, dived between father's legs, and slid out into the boat room, the door to which had been left ajar. A seal presents an awkward appearance hobbling on his queer flippers, but he can make rapid progress. Before father could get his balance and start after him, Nab was well out into the boat room.
Father stopped only to close the door against the rest of the seals, and was again in pursuit; but Nab in the meantime had reached the far end, bumped against the unfastened door and was scuttling across the outer threshold. Father ran after him, only to see his body floundering from one rock to another and to hear its happy splash in the water below.
We both felt sorry to lose Nab, for the buyers will always pick out a lively fellow and pay a better price for him than for another, even though he be larger.
"Couldn't we trap him again?" I asked.
"I guess you'd have an interesting time catching as smart a seal as that after he's already been once landed," said father. "One or two of them that have slipped out of the lasso I've got hold of again; but if a seal gets away after he's had one full sniff of civilization he doesn't very often get near enough for a second."
"Would you know him if you should see him?" I asked.
"I don't think we'll ever get that near, but we might come to within hearing distance, and I could tell his yap out of a hundred," replied father.
Without saying anything to father about it, I made up my mind to get Nab back, if such a thing were possible.