going to cook them as soon as we get home," Judy told Anne.
"Perkins knows all about fixing them, and Mrs. Adams is going to give
up the kitchen to us--it's lots of fun to eat the meat out of the
claws."

"Do you want them--devilled, Miss?" and Perkins coughed discreetly
before the word.

"Yes. In their shells, with parsley stuck in the top. They are
delicious that way, Anne."

Anne had her doubts as to the deliciousness of anything so
spidery-looking as those strange fish, but she said nothing.

"Is there anything Perkins can't do?" she asked Judy, as Perkins went
on ahead, bearing the great basket of crabs, and the net.

"I don't believe there is," laughed Judy. "He is supposed to be
grandfather's butler, but he won't let any one do a thing for
grandfather, and he plays valet and cook half the time when the other
servants don't suit him."

Once in the kitchen, Anne eyed the big basket shiveringly. The fierce
creatures stared at her with protruding bead-like eyes, and in a way
that seemed positively menacing.

"If they should get out," she thought, as she was left alone with them
for a moment.

She never knew how it happened, but Perkins must have left the basket
too near the edge of the chair on which he had placed it, for as she
took hold of the cover to shut it, the basket tipped, and down came the
living load, and in another moment, the desperate shell-fish were
scuttling across the floor in all directions.

With a shriek Anne took refuge on top of the stationary wash-tubs.

"Come up here, Judy," she cried, frantically, and Judy who had reached
the middle of the room, and was surrounded by pugilistic creatures
before she realized the catastrophe, drew herself up beside Anne, and
together they shrieked for Perkins.

Perkins came and saw and conquered as usual. The girls laughed until
the tears ran down their cheeks to see the battle. One by one the
crabs were picked up and dropped into a big kettle until at last it was
full.

"And now you young ladies had best go out," said Perkins, firmly,
"while I cook them."

It is well to draw a veil over the tragic fate of the kettleful of blue
crabs, but when Anne next saw them they were beautifully boiled, and
red--red as the scarlet of her bathing-suit.

All the afternoon the little girls, under Perkins' skilful guidance
learned a lesson in expert cookery, and at last, as a dozen perfectly
browned and parsley-decorated beauties were laid on a platte