"I say, Mike, don't you think we're a pair of old stupids to make all this fuss over a hole in the ground ?" "No: why should we be ?" "Because it doesn't seem any good.

Here we take all this trouble hiding away and going down the hole like worms, so as to crawl about there in the sand." "And what about the beautiful caves, and the rocks where we sit and watch the sea-birds ?" "We could see them just as well off the cliffs." "But the cove with the great walls of rock all round, and the current racing round like a whirlpool ?" "Plenty of currents and eddies anywhere off the coast." "But the fishing ?" "We could fish in easier places," said Vince, talking loudly now they were well down in the passage.

"Why, we've had better luck everywhere than here." "Oh, you are a discontented chap!" said Mike.

"You ought to think yourself wonderfully well off, to be able to come down to such a place.
See what jolly feasts we've had down here all alone." "Yes, but it seems to me sometimes like nonsense to be cooking potatoes and frying fish down in a cave, when we could sit comfortably at a table at your house or ours, and have no trouble at all." "Well, you are a fellow!" cried Mike.

"You said one day that the fish we cooked down there tasted twice as good as it did at home." "Yes, I did one day when we hadn't got it smoky." "We don't often get it smoky," protested Mike.