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 
