turtle
could either stay in the water or crawl up the inclined bottom of the
tub to where it was dry, whichever he pleased. She did this because
mamma said that turtles sometimes liked to stay in the water and
sometimes on land, and Twinkle's turtle could now take his choice. He
couldn't climb up the steep sides of the tub and so get away, and the
little girl thoughtfully placed crumbs of bread and fine bits of meat,
where the turtle could get them whenever he felt hungry.

After that, Twinkle often sat for hours watching the turtle, which would
crawl around the bottom of the tub, and swim in the little pool of water
and eat the food placed before him in an eager and amusing way.

At times she took him in her hand and examined him closely, and then the
mud-turtle would put out its little head and look at her with its bright
eyes as curiously as the girl looked at him.

She had owned her turtle just a week, when she came to the tub one
afternoon and held him in her hand, intending to feed her pet some
scraps of meat she had brought with her. But as soon as the turtle put
out its head it said to her, in a small but distinct voice:

"Good morning, Twinkle."

She was so surprised that the meat dropped from her hand, and she nearly
dropped the turtle, too. But she managed to control her astonishment,
and asked, in a voice that trembled a little:

"Can you talk?"

"To be sure," replied the turtle; "but only on every seventh day--which
of course is every Saturday. On other days I cannot talk at all."

"Then I really must have heard you speak when I caught you; didn't I?"

"I believe you did. I was so startled at being captured that I spoke
before I thought, which is a bad habit to get into. But afterward I
resolved not to answer when you questioned me, for I didn't know you
then, and feared it would be unwise to trust you with my secret. Even
now I must ask you not to tell any one that you have a turtle that knows
how to talk."

Chapter III
The Turtle Tells of the Corrugated Giant

"WHY, it's wonderful!" said Twinkle, who had listened eagerly to the
turtle's speech.

"It would be wonderful, indeed, if I were but a simple turtle," was the
reply.

"But aren't you a turtle?"

"Of course, so far as my outward appearance goes, I'm a common little
mud-turtle," it answered; "and I think you will agree with me that it
was rather clever in the Corrugated Giant to transform me into such a
creature."

"What's a