board
under-sheathing, a three-inch plank of hard wood, the solid white oak
timber twelve inches thick, then through another two and a half-inch
hard-oak ceiling, and lastly penetrated the head of an oil cask, where
it stuck, not a drop of the oil having escaped?'"

[Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE GET THIS TIME?

_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]

[Illustration: HERE'S A NEW ONE, BOYS!

The veteran collector of the Woods Hole Station is seen in the
foreground of both pictures.

_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]

"Yes, Mr. Prelatt," Colin answered, "and if he hadn't told me that the
record was authentic and that the sword and section of timber had been
in the National Museum, I might have doubted it."

"They're enormously powerful, one of the best boatmen I ever knew was
killed by a swordfish," said the director.

"How was that, sir?"

"He had harpooned the swordfish and had gone out in the small boat to
lance it, when the huge fish dived under the craft and shot up from the
bottom like a rocket, his sword going through the timbers as though they
were paper and striking the boatman with such force that he was killed
almost instantly. Boats used often to be sunk by the rushes of a
swordfish, but nowadays the greater part of the work is done directly
from the deck of a schooner. No amount of changes, however, can take all
the excitement out of a swordfish capture."

"Will they attack a boat unprovoked?"

"There are lots of cases in which they are supposed to have done so,"
the director replied, "but I think any such instances were probably
swordfish who had been wounded--but not fatally. You knew that the
swordfish was the Monarch of all the Fish?"

"No," Colin answered, "I didn't."

"He was so elected at one of the meetings of the International Congress
of Fisheries," said the director, smiling. "We were waiting for the
chairman or the speaker or somebody and in casual conversation the query
arose as to who was the real master of the seas, in the same way that
the lion is regarded as the King of Beasts."

"And the swordfish got the award?"

"After quite a little debate. Plenty of people had their own favorites,
the white shark and the killer whale among others, but when it came to a
sort of informal vote, the swordfish was chosen almost unanimously."

"I shall be glad to pay my respects to His Majesty," answered Colin with
a laugh, as the director wheeled his chair to his desk, "an