is eye to a convenient cranny between two
whitewashed boards.

Under an Injun-cigar tree which grew in the Enders' back yard the
fascinating visitor out of Northern parts was stretched in a hammock,
between draws on a cigarette discoursing grandiloquently to a
half-incredulous but wholly delighted audience of three. His three small
nephews were hunkered on the earth beside him, their grinning faces
upturned to his the while he dealt first with this and then with that
variety of curious fauna which, he alleged, were to be encountered in
the wilds of a strange place called the State of Rhode Island, where, it
seemed, he had spent the greater part of an adventurous and crowded
youth.

"Well," he was saying now, beginning, as it were, a new chapter, "if you
think the sulfur-crested parabola is a funny bird you should hear about
the great flannel-throated golosh, or arctic bird of the polar seas,
which is a creature so rare that nobody ever saw one, although Dr. Cook,
the imminent ex-explorer, made an exhaustive study of its habits and
peculiarities and told the King of Denmark about them, afterward
amplifying his remarks on the subject in the lecture which he delivered
in this, his native land, under the auspices of the International
School of Poor Fish. By the way, I'm sure the Doctor must have visited
this town on his tour. Only yesterday, I think it was, I saw an
illuminated sign down on Franklin Street which surely was used
originally to advertise his lecture. It was a sign which said, 'Cook
With Gas!' But speaking of fish, I am reminded of the fur-bearing
whiffletit; only some authorities say the whiffletit is not a fish at
all, but a subspecies of the wampus family. Now, the wampus--"

"Say, tell us about the whiffletit next," begged one wriggling
youngster, plainly allured by the sound of the name.

"With pleasure," said the speaker. "The whiffletit is found only in
streams running in a south-northerly direction. This is because the
whiffletit, being a sensitive creature with poor vision, insists on
having the light falling over its left shoulder at all times. A creek,
river, inlet, or estuary which has a wide mouth and a narrow head, such
as a professional after-dinner speaker has, is a favorite haunt for the
whiffletit. To the naturalist it is a constant source of joy. It always
swims backward upstream, to keep the water out of its eyes, and it has
only one fin, which grows just under its chin, so that the whif