, '_that's the hook_. Take it.'

'Wait a sec.,' said Kenneth again.

His courage was beginning to ooze out of his fin tips, and a shiver ran
down him from gills to tail.

'If you once begin to think about a hook you never take it,' said the
Carp.

'_Never?_' said Kenneth 'Then ... oh! good-bye!' he cried desperately,
and snapped at the worm. A sharp pain ran through his head and he felt
himself drawn up into the air, that stifling, choking, husky, thick
stuff in which fish cannot breathe. And as he swung in the air the
dreadful thought came to him, 'Suppose I don't turn into a boy again?
Suppose I keep being a fish?' And then he wished he hadn't. But it was
too late to wish that.

Everything grew quite dark, only inside his head there seemed to be a
light. There was a wild, rushing, buzzing noise, then something in his
head seemed to break and he knew no more.

* * * * *

When presently he knew things again, he was lying on something hard. Was
he Kenneth Fish lying on a stone at the bottom of the moat, or Kenneth
Boy lying somewhere out of the water? His breathing was all right, so he
wasn't a fish out of water or a boy under it.

'He's coming to,' said a voice. The Carp's he thought it was. But next
moment he knew it to be the voice of his aunt, and he moved his hand and
felt grass in it. He opened his eyes and saw above him the soft gray of
the evening sky with a star or two.

'Here's the ring, Aunt,' he said.

* * * * *

[Illustration: 'Oh, good-bye!' he cried desperately, and snapped at the
worm.]

The cook had heard a splash and had run out just as the picnic party
arrived at the front door. They had all rushed to the moat, and the
uncle had pulled Kenneth out with the boat-hook. He had not been in the
water more than three minutes, they said. But Kenneth knew better.

They carried him in, very wet he was, and laid him on the breakfast-room
sofa, where the aunt with hurried thoughtfulness had spread out the
uncle's mackintosh.

'Get some rough towels, Jane,' said the aunt. 'Make haste, do.'

'I got the ring,' said Kenneth.

'Never mind about the ring, dear,' said the aunt, taking his boots off.

'But you said I was a thief and a liar,' Kenneth said feebly, 'and it
was in the moat all the time.'

'_Mother!_' it was Alison who shrieked. 'You didn't say that to him?'

'Of course I didn't,' said the aunt impatiently. She thought she h