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He was holding, instead of a rod, something that might have been
a landing-net which some fishermen use, but which was much
more like the ordinary toy net which children carry, and which
they generally use indifferently for shrimps or butterflies.
He was dipping this into the water at intervals, gravely regarding
its harvest of weed or mud, and emptying it out again.
"No, I haven't caught anything," he remarked, calmly, as if answering
an unspoken query. "When I do I have to throw it back again;
especially the big fish. But some of the little beasts interest
me when I get 'em."
"A scientific interest, I suppose?" observed March.
"Of a rather amateurish sort, I fear," answered the strange fisherman.
"I have a sort of hobby about what they call 'phenomena
of phosphorescence.' But it would be rather awkward to go about
in society crying stinking fish."
"I suppose it would," said March, with a smile.
"Rather odd to enter a drawing-room carrying a large
luminous cod," continued the stranger, in his listless way.
"How quaint it would, be if one could carry it about
like a lantern, or have little sprats for candles.
Some of the seabeasts would really be very pretty like lampshades;
the blue sea-snail that glitters all over like starlight;
and some of the red starfish really shine like red stars.
But, naturally, I'm not looking for them here."
March thought of asking him what he was looking for; but, feeling unequal
to a technical discussion at least as deep as the deep-sea fishes,
he returned to more ordinary topics.
"Delightful sort of hole this is," he said. "This little dell
and river here. It's like those places Stevenson talks about,
where something ought to happen."
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