doin', ho yis!"

Before Ailie could reply, Glynn was on the surface spluttering and
brushing the hair from his forehead with one hand, while with the other
he hugged to his breast the piece of pink coral.

"Here--it--ha!--is. My breath--oh--is a'most gone--Ailie--catch hold!"
cried he, as he held out the coveted piece of rock to the child, and
scrambled out of the pool.

"Oh, thank you, Glynn; but why did you go down so quick and stay so
long? I got _such_ a fright."

"You bin pay your 'spects to de fishes," said Bumble, with a grin.

"Yes, I have, Bumble, and they say that if you stare at them any longer
with your great goggle eyes they'll all go mad with horror and die right
off. Have you caught any codlings, Bumble?"

"Yis, me hab, an' me hab come for to make a preeposol to Missie Ally."

"A what, Bumble?"

"A preeposol--a digestion."

"I suppose you mean a suggestion, eh?"

"Yis, dat the berry ting."

"Well, out with it."

"Dis am it. Me ketch rock-coddles; well, me put 'em in bucket ob water
an' bring 'em to you, Missie Ally, an' you put 'em into dat pool and
tame 'em, an' hab great fun with 'em. Eeh! wot you tink?"

"Oh, it will be _so_ nice. How good of you to think about it, Bumble;
do get them as quick as you can."

Bumble looked grave and hesitated.

"Why, what's wrong?" inquired Glynn.

"Oh, noting. Me only tink me not take the trouble to put 'em into dat
pool where de fishes speak so imperently ob me. Stop, me will go an'
ask if dey sorry for wot dey hab say."

So saying the negro uttered a shout, sprang straight up into the air,
doubled his head down and his heels up, and cleft the water like a
knife. Glynn uttered a cry something between a yell and a laugh, and
sprang after him, falling flat on the water and dashing the whole pool
into foam, and there the two wallowed about like two porpoises, to the
unbounded delight of Ailie, who stood on the brink laughing until the
tears ran down her cheeks, and to the unutterable horror, no doubt, of
the little fish.

The rock-codlings were soon caught and transferred to the pool, in
which, after that, neither Glynn nor Bumble were suffered to dive or
swim, and Ailie succeeded, by means of regularly feeding them, in making
the little fish less afraid of her than they were at first.

But while Ailie and Glynn were thus amusing themselves and trying to
make the time pass as pleasantly as possible, Captain Dunning was
oppressed with the