THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT. 87

CHAPTER IX.
A FISH STORY.

ERLE came over the next day, and the foreman turned
his work over to Nita, who worked on woman’s wages ;
she had seven pins a day where Nate had ten (the publishers
of Trotty’s Book always paid in pins, and in advance) ; Nita
bore her added labors as meekly as she bore everything else.
Trotty did not print, either. Merle said it made her fingers
inky. The story was about

' THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT.

Ir you don’t believe it, go and ask the first Honorable
Member of the Association for the Preservation of Cam-
phorated Caterpillars, whom you may chance to meet.
Though, why anybody should n’t believe it, is more than I
can see. And, in fact, I never saw anybody who did n’t
believe it. But then, I never saw the King of Siam; and
we all know that the King of Siam did not believe that there
was ice in the world. ‘“ Because,’ said he, “ T cannot walk on
water, and I never saw any water that could be walked upon.”
So perhaps there are a plenty of people who do not believe in
the Great Sea-Serpent of 1817.