Well, just you lock up your jewellery-box, and I'll show you." It was not easy for Dab to keep from laughing in Ford Foster's face; but his mother had not given him so many lessons in good-breeding for nothing, and Ford was permitted to close his ambitious "casket" without any worse annoyance than his own wounded pride gave him.
But now came out the secret of the basket.
The cover was jerked off; and nothing was revealed but a varied assortment of clams, large and small, but mostly of good size,--tough old customers, that no amount of roasting or boiling would ever have prepared for human eating.
"What are they for,--bait ?" "Yes, bait, weight, and all." "How's that ?" Dabney's reply was to draw from his pocket a couple of long, strong cords, bits of old fishing-lines.

He cracked a couple of clams one against the other; tied the fleshy part of one to each of the cords; tied bits of shell on, a foot or so from the ends, for sinkers; handed one cord to Ford, took the other himself, and laid the long-handled scoop-net he had brought with him down between them, saying,-- "Now we're ready.

Drop your clam down to the bottom, and it won't be half a minute before you feel something pull on it.

Then you draw it up gently,--steady as you know how.

You mustn't jerk the crab loose.