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from Horton to Oxwich Point in one tide, but now he has to go more slowly (by his standard, not mine), and is content to cover some favourite section, such as the strip from No Man's Point to the Round Boulder, or from the west gully of Lucas's Bay to the Look-out. Nowadays, too, he has a bus to catch, and an hour's journey before he can relax in his little place near the Grand Theatre. I followed Charlie as he visited three holes in as many yards. By long habit, which had become almost an intuitive process, he seemed to know from some subtle vibration of his rod whether there was a tenant to eject. There was a stiff breeze blowing at low-water line, and as Charlie (who likes to chew a plug of tobacco) was expec- torating with less precision than he showed in hooking out crabs, I soon learnt to walk on the windward side. There were frequent squalls, too, which wetted and chilled me to the point of discomfort, but which had little effect on him. As we scrambled along, I was shown the typical haunts of both crabs and lobsters, hitherto so elusive to me that I confess to having brooded in the past over my unsuccessful efforts to capture them. In the agony of frustration I had even dallied with the idea of secretly using some new methods of attack. There was dynamite, or less drastic, following Charlie round with a pot of paint to mark with arrows each hole he visited. I now learnt that my schemes were not so novel, for paint had been used, only to be washed off by the next tide. Dynamite was perhaps going a bit too far, though attempts had been made to remove the vaulting of some holes by using sledge-hammers. I was actually shown one cavity, once a famous lobster hole, the roof of which had been com- pletely removed, and not (so Charlie assured me) by the agency of wind or tide. Had I known this twenty years ago, how many sleepless nights would I have been spared So we walked on chatting, pausing here and there while Charlie effortlessly coaxed out an obstinate crab, or occasionally substituted the remark, This is a good crab-hole then, after deftly extending his hook, but he isn't here today." But he was in the next one, a large bull with its attendant cow. I was shown the difference, which I once knew, but had forgotten. The bull's not so good at this time of year: it's got less in the middle." Then as we turned to go on to the next, Think you'll remember that hole ? "-a question I was to be asked many times in the next hour or two. So I looked around me for bearings. Just above the Brinks was some dry-walling, two arms of which converged into a convenient V pointing directly to the ledge on which we were standing. Near us, not five yards away, was a lump of rock not unlike the sort of prehistoric monster one associates with Paviland and firmly fixed in my mind was the vivid image of two adjacent pools, an oddly-shaped crevice, and a big crab. Yes, I think I've got this one," I said confidently. The frequent repetition of Charlie's question was followed each time by the same intricate pin-pointing, the same infallible process of personal mnemonics, the same certainty of fixed registration.