GUINEVERE THE MYSTERIOUS 131 



drawing — the seven dissolving into the milk to 

 join their six fellows. 



This was sufficient to banish further medita- 

 tive surmising, and I crept swiftly to a point of 

 vantage, and with sweep-net awaited their reap- 

 pearance. It was five minutes before faint, dis- 

 colored spots indicated their rising, and at least 

 two minutes more before they actually disturbed 

 the surface. With eight or nine in view, I dipped 

 quickly and got nothing. Then I sank my net 

 deeply and waited again. This time ten minutes 

 passed, and then I swept deep and swiftly, and 

 drew up the net with four flopping, struggling 

 super-tadpoles. They struggled for only a mo- 

 ment, and then lay quietly waiting for what 

 might be sent by the guardian of the fate of tad- 

 poles — surely some quaint little god-relation of 

 Neptune, Pan, and St. Vitus. Gently shunted 

 into a glass jar, these surprising tads accepted 

 the new environment with quiet philosophy; and 

 when I reached the laboratory and transferred 

 them again, they dignifiedly righted themselves 

 in the swirling current, and hung in mid-aqua- 

 rium, waiting — forever waiting. 



It was difficult to think of them as tadpoles, 

 when the word brought to mind hosts of little 



