"You have to suffer frequently from some little people's thirst for knowledge." "I don't mind," chuckled the Captain, beaming with good-humour.

"But, to go on with my description of the trawl.

You must imagine, as I have said, an ordinary seine net, which must be a small one, and that looped up at the corners, too, somewhat in the shape of a funnel, or rather in the form of a cone sliced in two.

The mouth of this apparatus is kept open on its flat side by means of a pole some ten or twelve feet long, termed the `trawl-beam,' which floats uppermost when the net is down; while the lower side is weighted with a thick heavy piece of hawser styled the `ground-rope,' around which the meshes of the net are woven.
A bridle or `martingale' unites the two ends of the trawl-beam." "Yes, I see," said Bob, who was all attention, and taking the greatest interest in the Captain's explanation.

"I see." "Well," continued the old sailor, "to this bridle there is attached a double-sheaved block, through which runs a hundred-and-fifty fathom rope, capable of bearing a heavy strain.