The Rescue
of the squarish tent. "I don't advise you to touch her, though. Spiteful, she is. Lashes out with her tail—splashed old Mother Lee all over water she did—an' dangerous too: our Bill 'e got 'is bone set out in his wrist a-trying to hold on to her. An' it's thruppence extry to see her close."
There are times, as we all know, when threepence extra is a baffling obstacle—a cruel barrier to desire, but this was not, fortunately, such a moment. The children had plenty of money, because Mother had given them two half-crowns between them to spend as they liked.
"Even then," said Bernard, in allusion to the threepence extra, "we shall have two bob left."
So Mavis, who was treasurer, paid over the extra threepences to a girl with hair as fair and lank as hemp, and a face as brown and round as a tea cake, who sat on a kitchen chair by the Mermaid door. Then one by one they went in through the narrow opening, and at last there they were alone in the little canvas room with a tank in it that held—well, there was a large label, evidently written in a hurry, for the letters were badly made and arranged quite crookedly, and this label declared:
REAL LIVE MERMAID.
SAID TO BE FABULUS, BUT NOW TRUE.
CAUGHT HERE.
PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH.
DANGEROUS.
The little Spangled Boy had followed them in and pointed to the last word.
"What I tell you?" he asked proudly.
The children looked at eagh other. Nothing could be done with this witness at hand. At least …
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