By a mean land name like Fan!"

"I should think so," said the Goldfish. "It's like being christened
Algernon at church and being known as Petie in school."

"I don't wonder he sulked," said Jimmieboy.

"Nor I," said the Merboy. "But, say, Jimmieboy, you are cured of your
lockjaw, aren't you?"

"Dear me, I forgot!" said Jimmieboy. "I wasn't going to open my mouth
under water at all."

"Why not, pray?" asked the Merboy.

"For fear of swallowing the ocean," replied Jimmieboy.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the Merboy. "Why, you couldn't swallow a drop of it,
much less the whole of it, the way I've fixed it. Is that all you were
doing--just holding your month shut?"

"That's all," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, well! The idea!" said the Merboy. "You ought to have known
better."

"Well, I didn't," said Jimmieboy, glad to find that it was not really
necessary to keep his mouth closed.

"Apparently not--and it took the bureau of information to cure you.
That's a very useful bureau."

"Very," said Jimmieboy. "I'd like to go through some of the drawers if
we have time. Have we?"

"Lots," said the Merboy, taking the brush on the top of the bureau and
fixing his hair with it. "We have ten times as much time as there is
really."

"How can that be?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Well, never mind now," said the Merboy. "But some time you ask your
papa how long a dream a boy can have who is asleep only ten seconds. You
will be surprised at what he tells you. I once had a dream lasting forty
years in a nap that was less than a minute long. So go ahead. You have
plenty of time, and I dare say you will find lots of valuable
information in the bureau. I will be back in a few minutes."

"You aren't going to leave me, are you?" asked Jimmieboy.

"No. I'm only going to drive the Dolphins around to the stable. I'll be
right back."

The Merboy entered the carriage again and drove off, while Jimmieboy
turned his attention to the bureau of information. As he turned, his eye
caught sight of two little drawers that he had not noticed before on
either side of the mirror which surmounted the bureau. He tried to open
the right-hand drawer, but found it locked. The left-hand one opened
easily, and in it Jimmieboy found a little golden key. This, as it
turned out, was the key to the other drawer, and which, no sooner had
the key turned in the lock, slid out as though pushed by a spring, and
from it jumped the funniest little old man Jimmieboy had ever see