regulations as having been made for slaves and perhaps for the run of
other people; but not for me. As a matter of fact, what you may have
observed up until now has merely been my preliminary attack--what you
might call open warfare, with scouting operations. But when they
bring on the transverse section of watermelon I shall take these two
trenching tools which I now hold in my hands, and just naturally start
digging in. I trust you may be hanging round then; you'll certainly
overhear something.'

"'Kindly pass the ice water. That's it. Thank you. Join me, won't you,
in a brimming beaker? It may interest you to know that I am now on my
second carafe of this wholesome, delicious and satisfying beverage.
Where I have lately been, in certain parts of the adjacent continent,
there isn't any ice, and nobody by any chance ever drinks water.
Nobody bathes in it either, so far as I have been able to note. You'll
doubtless be interested in hearing what they do do with it over on
that side. It took me months to find out.

"'Then finally, one night in a remote interior village, I went to an
entertainment in a Y.M.C.A. hut. A local magician came out on the
platform; and after he had done some tricks with cards and
handkerchiefs which were so old that they were new all over again, he
reached up under the tails of his dress coat and hauled out a big
glass globe that was slopping full of its crystal-pure fluid contents,
with a family of goldfish swimming round and round in it, as happy as
you please.

"'So then, all in a flash, the answer came and I knew the secret of
what the provincials in that section of Europe do with water. They
loan it to magicians to keep goldfish in. But I prefer to drink a