It takes three or four days before they get fairly to work, and during this time they are called soft-shell crabs.

The youthful one has just got clear of his old home and its restraints, and is delighting in his freedom, when up walks the vampire, strikes him a blow on his defenceless head, knocks the life out of him, and then sits down to a dinner of soft-shell crab.

She took the damp bit of rubber—a wet overshoe, even if small and hallowed by associations, isn’t pretty—as Venus might have received a soft-shell crab from the hand of a fresh young merman.