urned and led into the sea. At the edge of the water he
paused and sighed, for his robe was now nicely dehydrated. But curiosity
is a compelling instinct and wonder a powerful emotion; and so Gud
followed the trail as it led down the sloping beach and on down along
the bottom of the sea.

At last the trail led to a rocky cavern where phosphorescent eyes stared
out of opalescent water. Here the trail came finally to an end as it
entered a door in the side of a barnacle-covered hull of an ancient
galley.

"And what is this place?" asked Gud of a mermaid, who was sitting on one
of the ship's knees: "and what bold criminal with a blood-stained trail
has entered here?"

"Can't you read?" retorted the mermaid. "The sign tells you plainly
enough that this is our Deep-Sea Butcher Shop, and he who just now
entered was the butcher's boy, who had been up on the shore to get some
red-blooded meat. We tire dreadfully down here of having seven Fridays
in a week. And now if you will quit being silly and playing at amateur
detective I will sing you a song." And so she sang:

Chapter XXXVII

It was a soulful song he sung,
A doleful song sang he,
For in the sun her body swung
High on the gallows' tree.

The loathsome vultures swooped among
The shadows hungrily,
As though awaiting for the dung
That swayed there horribly.

Then as a distant church bell rung
Slowly, peacefully,
Out through the night a mad cry flung
Red echoes suddenly.

A mad cry, then the silence clung
O'er sky and shore and sea;
He dead below, and she that hung
High on the gallows' tree.

Chapter XXXVIII

"Oh, listen to the mocking bird!" cried the crustacean.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the crinoid, "that is only a mock turtle."

"Oh H_{2}O!" snorted the good red herring, "you talk like a fish out of
water."

"She has a necklace of shark's teeth," whispered the jealous water baby.

"And a pearl without a price," piped the sea lady.

"But why do mermaids have fish tales to tell?" demanded Gud.

"I don't know," answered the deep sea diver, who was looking for the
treasure. "But they call 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'
prophetic fiction, but you can't shoot a rifle under water without
blowing your head off."

Just then the Underdog barked at the copycat and Gud woke up and
realized that all this marine stuff was just the subconscious yearning
of a wri