"A WHICH fish?"

"A gunfish. No, that isn't it. A--a swordfish, that's it.
Captain Hedge's is a swordfish."

"We-ll, that particular one got a wrong start and ended up by bein'
a whale, but I shouldn't wonder if we could find a swordfish if we
looked. Yes, here's one. Think that would do?"

The child looked it over very carefully.

"Yes," she said, "I think it would. If you're sure it would make
the wind go right."

"We-ll, I guess likely I could guarantee that fish would go 'most
any way the wind did, unless it should take a notion to blow
straight up and down, which don't happen often. So you know Cap'n
Hedge, do you? Relation of his, are you? Visitin' there?"

"No. Mamma and I are boarding at Mrs. Smalley's, but I go over to
call on Captain Hedge 'most every day."

"Sho! Want to know! Well, that's nice and sociable. So you're
boardin' at Luretta Smalley's. My! you're consider'ble ways from
home, ain't you? Is your mamma with you?"

For the first time the youthful caller's poise seemed a trifle
shaken.

"No-o . . . no," she stammered, and added, hastily: "How much is