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 “Our southern sunsets, Major Ayers—” But Major Ayers was staring at Fairchild.

—“Fisherd?” he murmured.

“Sure. Like the old cattle ranches out west, you know. But instead of a cattle ranch, Al Jackson has got a fish ranch out in the wide open spaces of the Gulf of Mexico—”

“Where men are sharks,” put in Mrs. Wiseman. “Don’t leave that out.” Major Ayers stared at her.

“Sure. Where men are men. That’s where this beautiful blonde girl comes in. Like Jenny yonder. Maybe Jenny’s the one. Are you the girl, Jenny?” Major Ayers now stared at Jenny.

Jenny was gazing at the narrator, her blue ineffable eyes quite round, holding a piece of bread in her hand. “Sir?” she said at last.

“Are you the girl that lives on that Jackson fish ranch out in the Gulf of Mexico?”

“I live on Esplanade,” Jenny said after a while, tentatively.

“Mr. Fairchild!” Mrs. Maurier exclaimed. Mr. Talliaferro said:

“My dear sir!”

“No, I reckon you are not the one, or you’d know it. I don’t imagine that even Claude Jackson could live on a fish ranch in the Gulf of Mexico and not know it. This girl is from Brooklyn, anyway—a society girl. She went down there to find her brother. Her brother had just graduated from reform school and so his old man sent him down there for the Jacksons to make a fisherd out of him. He hadn’t shown any aptitude for anything else, you see, and his old man knew it didn’t take much intelligence to herd a fish. His sister—”