so irrelevant a question shocked me. "I saw he felt slightly embarrassed
at having talked about his affairs so much," Kate told me afterward,
"and I thought we should leave him feeling more at his ease if we talked
about fish for a while." And sure enough he did seem relieved, and gave
us his opinion about the codfish at once, adding that he never cared
much for cod any way; folks up country bought 'em a good deal, he heard.
Give him a haddock right out of the water for his dinner!

"I never can remember," said Kate, "whether it is cod or haddock that
have a black stripe along their sides--"

"O, those are haddock," said I; "they say that the Devil caught a
haddock once, and it slipped through his fingers and got scorched; so
all the haddock had the same mark afterward."

"Well, now, how did you know that old story?" said Danny, laughing
heartily; "ye mustn't believe all the old stories ye hear, mind ye!"

"O, no," said we.

"Hullo! There's Jim Toggerson's boat close in shore. She sets low in
the water, so he's done well. He and Skipper Scudder have been out
deep-sea fishing since yesterday."

Our friend pushed the porgies back into a corner, stuck his knife into a
beam, and we hurried down to the shore. Kate and I sat on the pebbles,
and he went out to the moorings in a dirty dory to help unload the fish.

We afterward saw a great deal of Danny, as all the men called him. But
though Kate and I tried our best and used our utmost skill and tact to