laddin? Puss in Boots? Cin--"

"Soogar Wiver" interrupted Tot, promptly.

"_Soogar Wiver?_ Why, what a little pitcher for ears! What do you know
about Soogar Wiver?"

"Oo said," said Tot, with decision, "that oo went fisin' in Soogar
Wiver."

"Why, so I did," said the boy, reflectively.

"Is it vewy sweet?" asked Tot.

"Sweet?" echoed the boy, taking his wicked cue and with a prolonged
drawing in of the lips. "I should say so! Why, its bed is solid sugar,
with as many grades of sugar grains for sand as one finds in a grocer
shop."

"Do wivers do to bed dus 'ike 'ittle dirls?" demanded Tot, whose young
existence was embittered by that seemingly needless ceremony.

"You see," said the boy, with the air of communicating much useful
information, "it is even worse than that. They never get up at all. Only
once in a while they get into tantrums and break loose and make every
one scatter; for a river is one of the quickest fellows at a run you
ever saw. And well they might be, for they are at it all the time,
asleep or awake."

"I sood 'ike to see Soogar Wiver," said Tot.

"Wouldn't you!" And Will, fairly launched, tossed all conscientious
scruples overboard, and steered boldly out into the deep waters of
wildest imagination. "You just would! Why, as I said, the river bed is
solid sugar. Think how nice to be able to turn over and take a gnaw at
your bed-post when you feel hungry! The pebbles are sugar plums, the
bigger stones are broken sugar loaves, and the rocks, why, the rocks are
made out of rock candy, of course."

Tot sighed, blissfully.

"It is the jolliest place to go fishing. You just lie down on a rock,
nibble it occasionally, chew up a few pebbles, take a bite at a stone,
and if you are thirsty--as, of course, you would be--there is a whole
river of _eau sucre_--that is what the French call sweetened
water--running right by, enough to supply all France. And, all the time,
you are hauling up the fish just as fast as they can bite. They are a
peculiar kind of fish, wouldn't look at a worm. Nothing short of taffy
bait will tempt them. They look like those fishes you buy at the
confectioners--penny apiece--very high-colored, very flat, and mostly
tail; and, when cooked, they taste very much like them."

Tot still gazed up into the remorseless boy's face in unblinking
confidence. And, indeed, from one who, for the last two weeks, together
with Tot, had been on the most familiar footing with giants, ogres