beat her easily. We swam back
together, and she took her seat on the slab, while I stretched myself
on the sand by her side.

"You're a very singular man," she said after a while.

"I have been told so of many."

"And rather dull."

I sat up.

"Don't say you want me to make love to you!"

"Not much!" This emphatically.

"Ah, glad of a change, I suppose."

There was a silence, while she eyed me suspiciously. At length:

"I shall ask you to leave my cove if you're not careful," she said.

"Mermaid," I said, "I apologize. I was unaware that I had the honour
to speak to the lady of the manor."

"Well, if you didn't really know who I was---- But you mustn't be
dull."

I drew her attention to a sailing ship in the distance. "Now, that," I
said, "is what I call a really good ship."

"Barque!"

"Barque, I mean. It must be--"

"About five thousand tons"

"Burthen. Exactly. By the way, I never know what that really means
unless it means that, if you wanted to lift it, you couldn't."

"Try displacement."

"Thank you. It was off just such an one that I was cast away two years
ago come Michaelmas. We were just standing by in the offing, when she
sterruck with a grinding crash. There was a matter of seventy souls
aboard, and I shall never forget the look on the captain's face as the
ship's cat stole his place in the stern-sheets of the jolly-boat. I
was thrown up on a desert island, I was. You ought to have seen me
milking the goats on Spyglass Hill."

"Did you wear a goatskin cap?"

"Did I not! And two muskets. But my snake belt was the great thing.
You see--"

"Which reminds me--I think it's about time I got civilized again."

"Not yet, Mermaid," I pleaded; "the sun is yet high."

"You don't suppose I'm going to stay here all day, do you? We're not
on your precious island now."

"I only wish we were. I had my loaf of bread and jug of wine all
right, but the one thing I wanted, Mermaid, was--"

"A woman to keep him company without thinking he wanted to kiss her, or
marry her, or something. Whatever's that?"

I jumped to my feet and looked towards where she was pointing.

"It looks rather like--forgive me--a chemise."

"Good Heavens!"

Before I had time to move, she rushed into the surf and secured the
floating garment, made another dart at something else, and was knocked
down by a roller. I had her on her feet in a moment, but she dashed
the water out of her eves and looked