"No," I replied, angrily, "and neither did you."

"No, I never did," he said, in a curiously placid voice, "but there's
a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
needn't look that way--nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
tell you that there's a man--or a thing that looks like a man--as big
as you are, too--all slate-colored--with nasty red gills like a
fish!--and I've a witness to prove what I say!"

"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.

"The witness? My nurse."

"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"

"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the quarry.
Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody
can tell you about the harbor-master."

"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a
man--and--by Heaven! _is_ a man--that's the harbor-master. Ask any
quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their
boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of
every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he
saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
Ask anybody along the coast what sort of a thing moves about the
cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter--"