Page 212 - Adventures in shadow-land

and no one cared to quarrel with him. So they

contented themselves with calling him “ queer,"
and saying that “ oddity ran in the family.”

It was the summer vacation in the sea land. All
the commencements in the mer colleges were just

over. All the presidents of those institutions had
made their speeches in languages dead and alive,

and told all their classes what an enormous respon­
sibility rested upon them, how they were bound to

ft go forward,” and “ to conquer," and to ei build
themselves up,” and to “ develop themselves,”

and be “ leaders of their kind,” and, in short, do
something in proportion to the expense bestowed
on their education. This is a way they have in

sea land. But naturally in the sea they take
things cooler than we can on land, and you

wouldn't believe how very little difference the ad­
vent of all these expensively got up young mermen
made in the water world if you had not been there

to see. Now the old mer professor hadn’t had a
very comfortable time. His class that year was

rather a stupid one, and with all the pains he
could take and all the “ coachcs" they could use