cents only, the poached egg, not a rare variety. Your smile perhaps will
make it soft again. I hope you enjoy it at luncheon.

"But before luncheon you desire to prepare your charming toilet? Here I
offer you a comb, ladies, as they use under the sea. The story, that
Venus, goddess of beauty, when she rose from the ocean, dropped from her
hand the comb with which she arranged even then her locks of gold: hence
the name, Venus's Comb. Observe the long teeth, necessary for fine hair,
like that of Venus and these ladies."

Mrs. Isaac Cutter bridled, smoothed her "fluffy Fedora" (price one
dollar and fifty cents, ready curled), and bought the "comb" on the
spot.

"Of little boys under the sea," the Skipper continued,--and once more
his smile fell on the boy John, and produced that agreeable sensation of
warmth about the heart to which the little fellow had been long
unaccustomed,--"there are many. They swim about, they play, they sport,
they go to school, as little boys here. They ride, some persons have
told me, on the horse-mackerel, but of that I have no knowledge. I see
for myself, however, that they play tops, the small sea-boys. Here,
little gentleman, is the Imperial Top,--very beautiful shell. You like
to take it in your hand?"

John took the splendid thing, and straightway lost himself and the world
in a dream of rapture, in which he descended to the depths that his soul
desired, and played at spinning tops with the sea-boys, and rode a
horse-mackerel, and did many other wonderful things.

"The bat shell!" the Skipper went on, lifting one treasure and then