g, and thumb-twirling an unsatisfactory
occupation. This absolute silence of the "Father of History," we think,
almost proves our point. "Nonsense!" repeated little Maikar. "The
youth of the man who told you about the serpent accounts for his wild
description, for youth is prone to strange imaginings and--"

"It seems to me," interrupted a grave man, who twirled his thumbs in
that slow, deliberate way in which a contemplative man smokes--"it seems
to me that there's no more truth about the great sea-serpent than there
is about the golden fleece. I don't believe in either of them."

"Don't you? Well, all I can say is," returned the little man, gazing
fixedly in the grave comrade's face, "that I saw the great sea-serpent
with my own eyes!"

"No! did you?" exclaimed the group, drawing their heads closer together
with looks of expectancy.

"Ay, that did I, mates; but you mustn't expect wild descriptions about
monsters with bulls' horns and asses' tails from me. I like truth, and
the truth is, that the brute was so far away at the time we saw it, that
not a man of us could tell exactly what it was like, and when we tried
the description, we were all so different, that we gave it up; but we
were all agreed on this point, that it certainly _was_ the serpent."

The listeners seemed rather disappointed at this meagre account and
sudden conclusion of what had bidden fair to become a stirring tale of
the sea; but Maikar re-aroused their expectations by stating his firm
belief that it was all nonsense about there being only one sea-serpent.

"Why, how could there be only one?" he demanded, ceasing to twirl, in
order that he might clench his fist and smite his knee with emphasis.
"Haven't you got a grandfather?" he asked, turning suddenly to the grave
man.

"Certainly, I've got two of them if you come to that," he answered,
taken rather aback by the brusque and apparently irrelevant nature of
the question.

"Just so--two of them," repeated the little man, "and don't you think it
likely that the sea serpent must have had two grandfathers also?"

"Undoubtedly--and two grandmothers as well. Perhaps he's got them yet,"
replied the grave man with a contemplative look over the side, where the
rippling sea gleamed with phosphoric brilliancy.

"Exactly so," continued Maikar in an eager tone, "and of course these
also must have had two grandfathers besides a mother each, and it is
more than likely that the great sea-serpent