Roundfjsh 



fortunate physiognomy, looking rather hke a punch-drunk Negro 

 boxer who had lost a couple of his front teeth. Its deep blue black- 

 ness, however, suggested the Imperial purple rather than the stad- 

 ium, though the length and strength of muscle and fin again recalled 

 Jan to athletic comparisons. To some it might have appeared the 

 ugliest fish in the sea, yet its flesh was among the finest. Intensely 

 white, like the feathers of a gannet, and rather sweet it should 

 undoubtedly have been prized as a delicacy rather than dismissed 

 as a third-rate money spinner. 



ANGLER 



Along with it, most fishermen tended to think of the angler, 

 perhaps because they competed in ugliness, perhaps because they 

 were both caught in almost every haul and always in small num- 

 bers. Or perhaps it was just that they both made excellent eating. 

 The angler reminded Jan of nothing so much as a very cold bowl 

 of yesterday's porridge in which two bubbles of air had somehow 

 been petrified. These bubbles were the angler's eyes and when it 

 lay, a circular lump at the sea bottom, they looked vacantly up- 

 wards towards the surface. Above them, out of the centre of its 

 head, the angler dangled a sprig of delicate cartilage. This lure 



95 



