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 tiously stealing along on the other side of the moat, but they saw nothing more; and Mr. Asterias returning, told them, with accents of great disappointment, that he had had a glimpse of a mermaid, but she had eluded him in the darkness, and was gone, he presumed, to sup with some enamoured Triton, in a submarine grotto.

"But, seriously, Mr. Asterias," said the Honorable Mr. Listless, "do you positively believe there are such things as mermaids?"

Most assuredly; and Tritons too.

What! things that are half human and half fish?

Precisely. They are the Oran-outangs of the sea. But I am persuaded that there