“But didn’t you say——­” He paused to rub his head.  “You said I’d feel so good I wouldn’t mind if I—­if——­”

“No.  I said, ’Hurry’!”

“Well——­” And though he felt that a subtle injustice lurked somewhere, he was unable to think the matter out clearly into its composing elements, and gave up trying.  Nevertheless, as he obeyed her, and began to “hurry,” there remained with him an impression that by some foggy and underhand process he had been committed to acquiescence in an unfair division of labour.

In this he was not mistaken.  An hour later he and Florence were on their way home from the fish man’s place of business, and Herbert, having carried the basket thither, was now carrying it thence.  Moreover, his burden was precisely as heavy on this homeward leg of the course as it had been on that terminating at the fish store, for, covered by a discreet newspaper, the preserve and pickle jars still remained within the basket, their crowding and indignant contents intact.  The fish man had explained in terms derisive, but plain, the difference between a fish man and a fisherman.  He had maintained his definitions of the two economic functions in spite of persistent arguments on the part of the bait-dealers, and in the face of reductions that finally removed ninety per cent. of their asking price.  He wouldn’t give fifty cents, or ten cents, or one cent, he said:  and he couldn’t furnish the address of anybody else that would.  His fish came by express, he declared, again and again:  and the only people he knew that did any fishing were mainly coloured, and dug their own bait; and though these might possibly be willing to accept the angle worms as a gift, they would probably incline to resent a generosity including so many spiders, not to speak of the dangerous winged members of the c’lection.  On account of these latter, he jocosely professed himself to be anxious lest the tops of some of the jars might work loose—­and altogether he was the most disheartening man they had ever met.

Anticlimax was never the stimulant of amiability, and, after an altercation on the pavement just outside of the store, during which the derisive fish man continually called to them to go on and take that there basket out of the neighbourhood, the cousins moved morbidly away, and walked for a time in silence.

They brooded.  Herbert was even more embittered with Florence than he was with the fish man, and Florence found life full of unexpectedness; it had been so clear to her that the fish man would say:  “Why, certainly.  Here’s five dollars; two dollars and a half for each of you.  Would you care to have the jars back?” The facts, so contrary, seemed to wear the aspect of deliberate malice, and she felt ill-used, especially as she had several physical grievances, due to her assistance in pouring part of the c’lection into the jars with tops.  In spite of every precaution three or four of the liveliest items had made their escape, during this