eft.

"Come, Stranger, sit down and eat," she called cheerfully, "and while
we're eating let us decide into what forms we shall change your fishes."

"They're all right as they are," asserted Ervic, drawing up his bench
to the table. "The fishes are beauties--one gold, one silver and one
bronze. Nothing that has life is more lovely than a beautiful fish."

"What! Am I not more lovely?" Reera asked, smiling at his serious face.

"I don't object to you--for a Yookoohoo, you know," he said, helping
himself to the food and eating with good appetite.

"And don't you consider a beautiful girl more lovely than a fish,
however pretty the fish may be?"

"Well," replied Ervic, after a period of thought, "that might be. If
you transformed my three fish into three girls--girls who would be
Adepts at Magic, you know they might please me as well as the fish do.
You won't do that of course, because you can't, with all your skill.
And, should you be able to do so, I fear my troubles would be more than
I could bear. They would not consent to be my slaves--especially if
they were Adepts at Magic--and so they would command me to obey them.
No, Mistress Reera, let us not transform the fishes at all."

The Skeezer had put his case with remarkable cleverness. He realized
that if he appeared anxious for such a transformation the Yookoohoo
would not perform it, yet he had skillfully suggested that they be made
Adepts at Magic.

Chapter Nineteen

Red Reera, the Yookoohoo

After the meal was over and Reera had fed her pets, including the four
monster spiders which had come down from their webs to secure their
share, she made the table disappear from the floor of the cottage.

"I wish you'd consent to my transforming your fishes," she said, as she
took up her knitting again.

The Skeezer made no reply. He thought it unwise to hurry matters. All
during the afternoon they sat silent. Once Reera went to her cupboard
and after thrusting her hand into the same drawer as before, touched
the wolf and transformed it into a bird with gorgeous colored feathers.
This bird was larger than a parrot and of a somewhat different form,
but Ervic had never seen one like it before.

"Sing!" said Reera to the bird, which had perched itself on a big
wooden peg--as if it had been in the cottage before and knew just what
to do.

And the bird sang jolly, rollicking songs with words to them--just as a
person who had been carefully trained might d