feed on bats as other fish feed on the little,
gauzy-winged flies which dance over ponds! You saw those bats flying over
the pond last night, didn't you? That explains the whole thing! Don't you
understand? Why, what we saw were these gigantic fish leaping like trout
after the bats. It was their feeding time!"

I do not imagine that two more excited scientists ever existed than Brown
and I. The joy of discovery transfigured us. Here we had discovered a
lake in the Thunder Mountains which was the deepest lake in the world;
and it was inhabited by a few gigantic fish of the minnow species, the
existence of which, hitherto, had never even been dreamed of by science.

"Kitten," I said, my voice broken by emotion, "which will you have named
after you, the lake or the fish? Shall it be Lake Kitten Brown, or shall
it be _Minnius kittenii_? Speak!"

"What about that old party whose name you said had already been given to
the lake?" he asked piteously.

"Who? Mrs. Batt? Do you think I'd name such an important lake after
_her_? Anyway, she has declined the honour."

"Very well," he said, "I'll accept it. And the fish shall be known as
_Minnius Smithii_!"

Too deeply moved to speak, we bent over and shook hands with each other.
In that solemn and holy moment, surcharged with ecstatic emotion, a deep,
distant reverberation came across the water to our ears. It was the heavy
artillery, snoring.

Never can I forget that scene; sunshine glittering on the pond, the
silent forests and towering peaks, the blue sky overhead, the dead trees
where thousands of bats hung in nauseating clusters, thicker than the
leaves in Valembrosa--and Kitten Brown and I, cross-legged upon our
pneumatic raft, hands clasped in pledge of deathless devotion to science
and a fraternity unending.

"And how about that girl?" he asked.

"What girl?"

"Angelica White?"

"Well," said I, "_what_ about her?"

"Does she go with the lake or with the fish?"

"What do you mean?" I asked coldly, withdrawing my hand from his clasp.

"I mean, which of us gets the first chance to win her?" he said,
blushing. "There's no use denying that we both have been bowled over
by her; is there?"

I pondered for several moments.

"She is an extremely intelligent girl," I said, stalling.

"Yes, and then some."

After a few minutes' further thought, I said:

"Possibly I am in error, but at moments it has seemed to me that my
marked attentions to Miss White are not