g. If she had spoken then, the
Eldest Magician would have called me back, and all this would never have
happened. What will _she_ do for me?'

And the little girl-daughter said, 'This is a good nut that I am eating.
If you choose, I will make a Magic and I will give you this pair of
scissors, very sharp and strong, so that you and your children can eat
cocoa-nuts like this all day long when you come up from the Sea to the
land; or you can dig a Pusat Tasek for yourself with the scissors that
belong to you when there is no stone or hole near by; and when the earth
is too hard, by the help of these same scissors you can run up a tree.'

And Pau Amma said, 'I do not choose yet, for, all soft as I am, these
gifts would not help me. Give me back my shell, O Eldest Magician, and
then I will play your play.'

And the Eldest Magician said, 'I will give it back, Pau Amma, for
eleven months of the year; but on the twelfth month of every year it
shall grow soft again, to remind you and all your children that I can
make magics, and to keep you humble, Pau Amma; for I see that if you can
run both under the water and on land, you will grow too bold; and if you
can climb trees and crack nuts and dig holes with your scissors, you
will grow too greedy, Pau Amma.'

Then Pau Amma thought a little and said, 'I have made my choice. I will
take all the gifts.'

Then the Eldest Magician made a Magic with the right hand, with all five
fingers of his right hand, and lo and behold, Best Beloved, Pau Amma
grew smaller and smaller and smaller, till at last there was only a
little green crab swimming in the water alongside the canoe, crying in a
very small voice, 'Give me the scissors!'

And the girl-daughter picked him up on the palm of her little brown
hand, and sat him in the bottom of the canoe and gave him her scissors,
and he waved them in his little arms, and opened them and shut them and
snapped them, and said, 'I can eat nuts. I can crack shells. I can dig
holes. I can climb trees. I can breathe in the dry air, and I can find a
safe Pusat Tasek under every stone. I did not know I was so important.
_Kun?_' (Is this right?)

'_Payah-kun_,' said the Eldest Magician, and he laughed and gave him
his blessing; and little Pau Amma scuttled over the side of the canoe
into the water; and he was so tiny that he could have hidden under the
shadow of a dry leaf on land or of a dead shell at the bottom of the
sea.

'Was that well done?' said