One day, when tired of struggling with gamy blue-fish and powerful cavalios (if that is the way to spell it), I wound up my line, and looked about to see what the others were doing.  The Paying Teller stood near, on tiptoe, as usual, with his legs wide apart, his hat thrown back, his eyes flashing over the water, and his right arm stretched far out, ready for a jerk.  Quee was farther along the beach.  He had just landed a fish, and was standing gazing meditatively upon it as it lay upon the sand.  The hook was still in its mouth, and every now and then he would give the line a little pull, as if to see if there really was a connection between it and the fish.  Then he would stand a little longer, and meditate a little more, still looking alternately at the line and the fish.  Having made up his mind, at last, that the two things must be separated, he kneeled down upon his flopping prize and proceeded meditatively to extract the hook.  The teacher was struggling at her line.  Hand over hand she pulled it in.  As it came nearer and nearer, her fish swam wildly from side to side, making the tightened line fairly hiss as it swept through the water.  But still she pulled and pulled, until, red and breathless, she landed her prize upon the sand.

“Hurrah!” shouted the Paying Teller.  “That’s the biggest blue-fish yet!” But he did not come to take the fish from the hook.  He was momentarily expecting a bite.

Euphemia was not to be seen.  This did not surprise me, as she frequently gave up fishing long before the others, and went to stroll upon the sea-beach, a few hundred yards away.  She was fond of fishing, but it soon tired her.  “If you want to know what it is like,” she wrote to a friend in the North, “just tie a long string around your boy Charlie, and try to haul him out of the back yard into the house.”

But Euphemia was not upon the sea-beach to-day.  I walked a mile or so along the sand, but did not find her.  She had gone around the little bluff to our shark-line.  This was a long rope, like a clothes-line, with a short chain at the end and a great hook, which was baited with a large piece of fish.  It was thrown out every day, the land end tied to a stout stake driven into the sand, and the whole business given into the charge of “the crew,” who was to report if a shark should bite.  But to-day the little rascal had wandered away, and Euphemia was managing the line.

“I thought I would try to catch a shark all by myself,” she said.  “I wonder if there’s one on the hook now.  Would you mind feeling the line?”

I laughed as I took the rope from her hand.

“If you had a shark on the hook, my dear,” said I, “you would have no doubt upon the subject.”

“It would be a splendid thing to catch the first one,” she said, “and there must be lots of them in here, for we have seen their back fins so often.”

I was about to answer this remark when I began to walk out into the water.  I did not at the time know exactly why I did this, but it seemed as if some one had taken me by the hand and was leading me into the depths.  But the water splashing above my ankles and a scream from Euphemia made me drop the line, which immediately spun out to its full length, making the stake creak and move in the sand.