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“It’s an albicore takin’ a buck lep. Hundreds I’ve seen before this; he’s bein’ chased.”

“What’s chasing him, Paddy?”

“What’s chasin’ him?—why, what else but the gibly-gobly-ums!”

Before Dick could enquire as to the personal appearance and habits of the latter, a shoal of silver arrow heads passed the boat and flittered into the water with a hissing sound.

“Thim’s flyin’ fish. What are you sayin’—fish can’t fly! Where’s the eyes in your head?”

“Are the gibblyums chasing them too?” asked Emmeline fearfully.

“No; ’tis the Billy balloos that’s afther thim. Don’t be axin’ me any more questions now, or I’ll be tellin’ you lies in a minit.”

Emmeline, it will be remembered, had brought a small parcel with her done up in a little shawl; it was under the boat seat, and every now and then she would stoop down to see if it were safe.

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Every hour or so Mr Button would shake his lethargy off, and rise and look round for “sea-gulls,” but the prospect was sail-less as the prehistoric sea, wingless, voiceless. When Dick would fret now and then, the old sailor would always devise some means of amusing him. He made him fishing-tackle out of a bent pin and some small twine that happened to be in the boat, and told him to fish for “pinkeens”; and Dick, with the pathetic faith of childhood, fished.