"Was it a dog swimming?"
"No," said Caius, "it wasn't a dog."
"Well, I give it up. Next time you see it, you'd better come and fetch
the gun, and then you can take it to the musee up at your college, and
have it stuffed and put in a case, with a ticket to say you presented
it. That's all the use strange fish are that I know of."
When Caius reflected on this conversation, he knew that he had been a
hypocrite.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SEA-MAID'S MUSIC.
At dawn Caius was upon the shore again, but he saw nothing but a red
sunrise and a gray sea, merging into the blue and green and gold of the
ordinary day. He got back to breakfast without the fact of his matutinal
walk being known to the family.
He managed also in the afternoon to loiter for half an hour on the same
bit of shore at the same hour as the day before without anyone being the
wiser, but he saw no mermaid. He fully intended to spend to-morrow by
the sea, but he had made this effort to appear to skip to-day to avoid
awaking curiosity.
He had a horse and buggy; that afternoon he was friendly, and made many
calls. Wherever he went he directed the conversation into such channels
as would make it certain that he would hear if anyone else had seen the
mermaid, or had seen the face of a strange woman by sea or land. Of one
or two female visitors to the neighbourhood within a radius of twenty
miles he did hear, but when he came to investigate each case, he found
that the visit was known to everyone, and the status, lineage and habits
of the visitors all of the same humdrum sort.
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