he, "ha'n't the foresight to get swept afore Midsummer, I don't humour 'em."

"Are—are you really going for a drive, sir?" I stammered.

"To be sure I am. I drive every day in the summer. What do you suppose?"

"It won't be a chaise and pair, sir?" I hazarded, though even this would not have surprised me.

"Not to-day. Lord knows what we may come to, but to-day 'tis mackerel and whiting; later on, pilchards."

He took me down to the quay; and there, sure enough, we stepped on board a boat lying ready, with two men in her, who fended off and began to hoist sails at once. Mr. Trapp took the helm. It turned out that he owned a share in the vessel and worked her from Midsummer to Michaelmas with a crew of two men and a boy. The men were called Isaac and Morgan (I cannot remember their other names), the one extremely old and surly, the other cheerful, curly-haired and active, and both sparing of words. I was to be the boy.

We baited our hooks and whiffed for mackerel as we tacked out of the Sound. And by and by we came to what Isaac called the "grounds" (though I could see nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the sea) and cast anchor and weighted our lines differently and caught a few whiting while we ate our dinner. The wind had fallen to a flat calm. After dinner Mr. Trapp looked up and said to Isaac:

"Got a life-belt on board?"

"What in thunder do 'ee want it for?" asked Isaac.

"That's my business," said Mr. Trapp.

So Isaac hunted up a belt made of pieces of cork and then was ordered to lash one of the sweeps so that it stuck well outboard.  "Now, my lad," said Mr. Trapp, turning to me, "you've been a very good lad 'pon the whole, and I see you fighting with the tackers down 'pon the quay and holding your own. But they can swim, and you can't, and it's wearing your spirit. So here's a chance to larn. I can't larn' ee myself, for the fashion's come up since I was a youngster. Can you swim, Morgan?"

Morgan could not; and old Isaac said he couldn't see the use of it— if you capsized, it only lengthened out the trouble.

"Well, then, you must larn yourself," said Mr. Trapp to me. "I've heard that pigs and men are the only 

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