CHAPTER II.

THE START.

immieboy grabbed up his blue suit and in a very few minutes was arrayed in it, but on his return to the aquarium to join the goldfish he found it empty.

"Dear me!" he cried, "I wonder if he can have gone off without me."

"No, he hasn't," came a silvery voice from behind him.

Jimmieboy turned sharply about, and there, sitting upon the sofa arrayed in his red bathing-suit, sat a beautiful boy of about his own age and size, with great masses of golden hair falling over his shoulders.

"Hullo!" said Jimmieboy, as soon as he had recovered from his surprise. "Who are you?"

"I am your goldfish," laughed the boy. "Or, rather, I was. I am now my true self. I am a merboy, as, in fact, all goldfish are. See?" he added, holding up what Jimmieboy had taken for feet. "I have a tail like a fish instead of feet."

Jimmieboy was delighted. He had heard all about mermen and mermaids, but merboys were something new.

"Now," said the merboy, as a tremendous lashing of something in the aquarium began to ruffle up the water therein, "come along. Get into my carriage and we shall start."

Mute with astonishment, Jimmieboy could do nothing but obey, and entering a huge vehicle that floated upon the surface of the water in the aquarium--which had, singularly enough, taken on tremendous proportions--the merboy gave a whistle, and they were off. The carriage had the appearance of a superb shell lined with mother-of-pearl, and studded all over with the most costly and lustrous jewels, and soon passing out from the limits of the aquarium, Jimmieboy found himself bounding over a great body of water, drawn by a pair of gayly caparisoned dolphins, which the smiling merboy guided with two golden ribbons.

"How do you feel?" asked the merboy, as, after driving along for several minutes, the travellers passed out of sight of land.

"First rate," said Jimmieboy. "This is lots of fun."

"I'm glad you find it so," returned the merboy, with a smile of relief. "I was afraid you were not enjoying yourself very much. You looked a little anxious. Were you anxious?"

"Not exactly," replied Jimmieboy. "But it did sort of bother me when I thought of what might happen if this wagon should upset."

"Don't see anything you need to bother about in that," said the merboy, giving the near dolphin a flick with his whip for shying at a buoy. "It's twice as safe as driving on land. The land is hard, and if you were thrown out of a wagon there the chances are you'd be hurt; but here it is very different. Falling out here would be like tumbling into a feather bed. The water is very soft."

"I understand that, of course," said Jimmieboy, with a smile. "But what I was worrying about chiefly was that the water here is very deep. It must be two or three times over my head, and I can't swim. I can only wade."

"What of it? I don't see anything in that to worry about," retorted the merboy. "I might just as well get timid when we are near the shore because I can't wade."

"Wouldn't I be drowned?" asked Jimmieboy.

The look which the ex-goldfish gave Jimmieboy as the latter said this was one of reproach. He was evidently deeply hurt by Jimmieboy's remark.

"You aren't a polite boy, I think," he said. "The idea! Wouldn't you be drowned! Let me ask you a question. If you were invited out to dinner by a person you knew, do you think while you were sitting at his table you'd go hunting about in your head for some _if_ that would end in your starving to death? Wouldn't you know that being invited to eat with that man you'd get your dinner all right?"

"Certainly," said Jimmieboy. "But what has that got to do with it?"

"Plenty," snapped the merboy. "You are my guest, and I look after all the details, such as swimming and so forth, just as your other host would look after all the details, such as eating and so forth. If you are going to be a scarecat I'll drive right back home again, for I don't like cats of any kind."

"I'm not afraid," said Jimmieboy. "I trust you, Mermy."

"Thank you," said the merboy, dropping one rein to squeeze Jimmieboy's hand. "Thank you very much. You will find your confidence is well placed, for as long as you are with me as my guest you can stand on your head miles deep in water without being in any danger of drowning. Why, if you couldn't, I never should have thought of bringing you along, for in a very few minutes we come to a turn in our road and then we shall drive down under the water three miles and a half, and, what is more, you won't even know you are under water unless I tell you."

So Jimmieboy was reassured on the one point concerning which he had been a little timid, and he proceeded at once to enjoy everything he saw. In silence they drove on and on, and as the ocean was as smooth as glass they covered a great many miles in a few minutes. Suddenly the merboy reined in his dolphins with a sharp jerk, which caused the carriage to stop with such suddenness that Jimmieboy was nearly thrown out of his seat.

"What's the matter?" cried Jimmieboy, a little alarmed at this sudden stoppage. "Nothing wrong?"

"No," said the merboy, shortly. "But there might have been. Look ahead of you there."

Jimmieboy did as he was told, and saw in an instant why the merboy had stopped short. A great big ocean steamer was ploughing its way through the waves at a tremendous rate of speed directly across their path.

"Don't you see?" said the merboy, as the steaming monster passed on, leaving a great strip of white foam behind it; "we were nearly run down that time. It is dreadful the way these steamers are allowed to ignore the safety of the rightful occupants of the seas. On land, when a railroad crosses a driveway, they make the trains go over or under a road in many places, and where they don't do that, they make them put up fences or bars and station men to signal people who are driving of the approach of trains. Out here they are perfectly lawless. They cross our drives on the level always, and never yet has one of the steamers whistled or rung a bell to warn a fish to get out of its way."

"It doesn't seem right, does it?" said Jimmieboy.

"No, it doesn't," replied the merboy; "and the meanest part of it all is the steamship people don't care. If I had my way they'd be compelled to fence in their routes all the way over, and station signal-men in boats at road crossings to warn us of impending danger. Why, if it hadn't been for our own police, police that we have to pay ourselves, you and I would have been run down just now."

"You don't mean to say you have police out here on the ocean?" said Jimmieboy.

"Yes," said the merboy; "several of 'em. In fact, we have about a million of 'em altogether. You land people call 'em porpoises. Ever see a porpoise?"

"Lots of them," Jimmieboy replied. "They come up our river sometimes, and papa has told me lots of stories about them, but he never said they were policemen."

"They aren't police-_men_," laughed the merboy. "They are police-fish. What did he ever tell you about them?"

"Oh--well--he said he'd seen schools of them jumping about in the water when he was crossing the ocean on one of those big boats," said Jimmieboy; "and one of them, he said, followed his ship for four days one time. The reason why I remember about it particularly is that he told me, maybe, if I would be a very good boy, he'd try to get me one for a pet that I could tie a chain to and lead around when we went rowing some time."

The merboy laughed.

"The idea!" he said. "As if a porpoise could be treated like a poodle! That shows how little you land people know about porpoises. Did your father say they went about in schools?"

"That's what he told me," said Jimmieboy, meekly. "Don't they?"

"Humph!" said the merboy. "Don't they! Well, let me tell you one thing. Don't you ever let a porpoise hear you say he goes about in schools. Leave schools to minnows and moss-bunkers and children. Why, my dear boy, porpoises know too much to go about in schools. They'd be much more likely to go about in colleges, if they went in anything of the sort. Didn't you ever hear the story of the Porpoise and the Land-sage?"

"I never did." Jimmieboy answered. "I never heard of a land-sage either. What is a land-sage?"

"A land-sage is a creature like a man. In fact, he is a man, and he lives on the land, and thinks he knows everything, when in reality he only knows land things."

"But isn't it good to know land things?" Jimmieboy asked.

"Oh yes--in a way," said the merboy, patronizingly. "But just because you know land things doesn't make you the wisest thing in the world. It's a great deal better to know sea things, because if you know sea things you know more than you do if you only know land things. There's three times as much sea as land in the world, and so, of course, sea-sages are three times as wise as land-sages. What's more, you who live on the land don't begin to hear of a half of a millionth part of the things that happen under the sea, while we who live under the sea can get all the land news we want by tapping your Atlantic cable."

"Why, so you can," said Jimmieboy. "I never thought of that."

"Of course you didn't. You haven't got the kind of mind that thinks that kind of thoughts," sneered the merboy. "You people think you are great when you are able to sit at your breakfast tables in New York on Friday morning and talk about what has happened in London that same Friday afternoon--and it is rather smart to be able to do that, I admit--but what do you know about what has been going on in Sealadelphia, or Sharkargo, or Whalington, or Moss-bunkerton? Not a thing, I'll warrant. But these sea creatures know all you know, and all their own news besides. So, you see, when a land-sage begins swapping knowledge with a sea-sage he finds himself 'way behind."

"And what was the story about the Porpoise and the Land-sage?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Well, as I remember it," said the merboy, "it went this way:

"THE PORPOISE AND THE LAND-SAGE.

"A Land-sage once, who thought he knew All that there was to know, Went out to sea without a crew, And floated to and fro. And then, before he was aware Just what he was about, A fearful wind did straightway tear His jib and mainsail out.

"I'm all at sea!" he moaned and cried; "Oh dear, what shall I do! Would that I'd never come outside Without my gallant crew." Just as he spoke a Porpoise came. The Land-sage cried, "What, ho! Where are you from, and what's your name? Hullo there, you! Hullo!"

"What do you wish?" the Porpoise said In accents soft and meek. "I'd like to be at home in bed-- What language do you speak?" "Sea-doggerel," the Porpoise then Made answer with a grin, "Unless I speak with Englishmen, And then I speak in Finn."

"Perhaps," the Land-sage then observed, "You can enlighten me By telling me-- I'm much unnerved-- Just where I chance to be." "Of course I can," the fish said. "You, I think 'tis very clear, Are out of sight of Manitou And just about off here."

"Pray do not mock me," quoth the sage; "I'm truly badly off, And 'tis not right one of your age At one like me should scoff. I am the most enlightened man That e'er the world did see; So help me home, sir, if you can, And tell me where I be."

"You make me laugh," the Porpoise said. "Why should you come to me? If you've all knowledge in your head, I truly cannot see Why you should ask a Porpoise, who Is ignorant and plain, What in this instance you should do To get back home again?

"But I will tell you what I'll do: If you will shed some light Upon a few things--one or two-- I'll get you back all right." "A bargain!" cried the Land-sage, loud. "I pray you do begin." "I will," the Porpoise said, and bowed. "Why do you wear a chin?

"Why have you hair upon your head? And why do men wear cuffs? And why are cannon-crackers red? And why is cream in puffs? Why can't you swim on mountain-tops? And why is water wet? And why don't hens, like lambs, have chops? And why don't roosters set?"

"The Land-sage paled as to his cheek. "I cannot say," said he. "Then why does Friday come each week? And why do maids drink tea? Oh tell me why all kittens mew? And why do little boys, When with their daily tasks they're through, Make such a dreadful noise?

"The Porpoise waited for the sage To answer, but in vain. It filled the wise man full of rage To have to flunk again. Whereat the Porpoise, with a sneer And very scornful glance, Remarked: "You're very dull, I fear. I'll give you one more chance.

"Tell me one thing I never heard In all my life before, And I will pass to you my word To see you safe ashore. But don't be rash, oh, sage," said he. "Take all the time you need To think of what to tell me That's truly new indeed."

"The Land-sage thought and thought all day, He thought the long night through, But not an idea came his way That he was sure was new; And finally, in great despair, He thought that he would see What could be done to ease his care By simple flattery.

"And so he spoke, "Oh, Mr. P----, Oh, Porpoise, sleek and trim, The thought has just occurred to me My wisdom's rather slim; But I believe a creature that 'S as beautiful as you Can't have the heart to let a flat Like me die in the blue."

"You think me so?" the Porpoise said. "I do!" the sage replied. "You have the purest classic head I ever have espied. Your eyes are truly lovely, And your mouth is full of grace, And nothing nobler can one see Than is your noble face."

"The Land-sage ceased; the Porpoise smoled And winked his eyes of blue. "You've won, professor. You have told Me something truly new. I never heard my beauty praised In all my life before." And then his good right fin he raised And towed the sage ashore."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.

BY AGNES LITTLETON.