g
clumsily about the centre of attraction in the hollow of the net; and
then we shouted in glee and went almost wild with excitement.

Just at the beginning of Meigg's Wharf there was a house of
entertainment that no doubt had a history and a mystery even in those
young days. We never quite comprehended it: we were too young for that,
and too shy and too well-bred to make curious or impertinent inquiry. We
sometimes stood at the wide doorway--it was forever invitingly open,
--and looked with awe and amazement at paintings richly framed and hung
so close together that no bit of the wall was visible. There was a bar
at the farther end of the long room,--there was always a bar somewhere
in those days; and there were cages filled with strange birds and
beasts,--as any one might know with his eyes shut, for the odor of it
all was repelling.

The strangest feature of that most strange hostelry was the amazing
wealth of cobwebs that mantled it. Cobwebs as dense as crape waved in
dusty rags from the ceiling; they veiled the pictures and festooned the
picture-frames, that shone dimly through them. Not one of these cobwebs
was ever molested--or had been from the beginning of time, as it seemed
to us. A velvet carpet on the floor was worn smooth and almost no trace
of its rich flowery pattern was left; but there were many square boxes
filled with sand or sawdust and reeking with cigar stumps and tobacco
juice. Need I add that some of those pictures were such as our young and
innocent eyes ought never to have been laid on? Nor were they fit for
the eyes of others.

There was something uncanny about that house. We never knew just what it
was, but we had a faint idea that the proprietor's wife or daughter was
a witch; and that she, being as cobwebby as the rest of its furnishings,
was never visible. The wharf in front of the house was a free menagerie.
There were bears and other beasts behind prison bars, a very populous
monkey cage, and the customary "happy family" looking as dreadfully
bored as usual. Then again there were whole rows of parrots and
cockatoos and macaws as splendid as rainbow tints could make them, and
with tails a yard long at least.

From this bewildering pageant it was but a step to the beach below.
Indeed the water at high tide flowed under that house with much foam and
fury; for it was a house founded upon the sand, and it long since
toppled to its fall, as all such houses must. We followed the beach,
that