"There is a certain fish, whose head is 9 inches in length, his tail
as long as his head and half of his back, and his back as long as
both head and tail together. Query, the length of the fish?"

But Aunt Judy was not left long in peace with her fish. While she
was in the thick of "suppositions" and "errors," a tap came at the
window.

"Aunt Judy!"

"Stop!" was the answer; and the hand of the speaker went up, with the
slate-pencil in it, enforcing silence while she pursued her
calculations.

"Say, back 42 inches; then tail (half back) 21, and head given, 9,
that's 30, and 30 and 9, 39 back.--Won't do! Second error: three
inches--What's the matter, No. 6? You surely have not begun to
quarrel already?"

"Oh, no," answered No. 6, with her nose flattened against the window-
pane. "But please, Aunt Judy, No. 8 won't have the oyster-shell
trimming round his garden any longer, he says; he says it looks so
rubbishy. But as my garden joins his down the middle, if he takes
away the oyster-shells all round his, then one of MY sides--the one
in the middle, I mean--will be left bare, don't you see? and I want
to keep the oyster-shells all round may garden, because mamma says
there are still some zoophytes upon them. So how is it to be?"

What a perplexity! The fish with his nine-inch head, and his tail as
long as his head and half of his back, was a mere nothing to it.