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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 whiffletit can fan itself in warm weather, thus keeping cool, calm, and collected. Most marvelous thing of all about this marvelous creature is its diet. For the whiffletit, my dear young friends, lives exclusively on imported Brie cheese.

“Did I say exclusively? Ah, there I fell into error. It has been known to nibble at a chiropodist’s finger, but it prefers imported Brie cheese, aged in the wood. The mode employed in catching it is very interesting, and I shall now describe it to you. Selecting a body of water wherein the whiffletit resides, you enter a round-bottomed boat and row out to the middle of it. Then you take a square timber, and, driving it into the water, withdraw it very swiftly so as to leave a square hole in the water. Care should be taken to use a perfectly square timber because the whiffletit being, as I forgot to tell you, shaped like a brick, cannot move up and down a round hole without barking its shins, much to the discomfort of the pretty creature.

“Pray follow me closely now, for at this juncture we come to the most important phase of the undertaking. You bait the edges of the hole with the cheese cut in small cubes and quietly await results. Nor do you have long to wait. Far down below in his watery retreat the whiffletit catches the alluring aroma of the cheese. He swims to the surface and devours it to the last crumb. But alas for the greedy whiffletit! Instantly the cheese swells him up so that he cannot change gears nor retreat back down the hole, and as he circles about, flapping helplessly, you lean over the side of the boat and laugh him to death! And such, my young friends, such is the fate of the whiffletit.”