Page:Wet Magic - Nesbit.djvu/28

Wet Magic was Sea, and the fifth was Mermaid. The fourth which came between Sea and Mermaid was Alleged.

"I say," said Mavis, "let's look."

"Don't pull then, you can see all right," said Francis, and this is what they read together:

BEACHFIELD-ON-SEA—ALLEGED MERMAID. AMAZING STORY.

"At this season of the year, which has come to be designated the silly season, the public press is deluged with puerile old-world stories of gigantic gooseberries and enormous sea serpents. So that it is quite in keeping with the weird traditions of this time of the year to find a story of some wonder of the deep, arising even at so well-known a watering place as Beachfield. Close to an excellent golf course, and surrounded by various beauty spots, with a thoroughly revised water supply, a newly painted pier and three rival Picture Palaces, Beachfield has long been known as a rising  of exceptional attractions, the quaint charm of its . . .'"

"Hold on," said Francis, "this isn't about any old Mermaid."

"Oh, that'll be further on," said Mavis. "I expect they have to put all that stuff in to be polite to Beachfield—let's skip—‘agreeable promenade, every modern convenience, while preserving its quaint . . .' What does quaint mean, and why do they keep on saying it?"

"I don't think it means anything," said Francis, "it's just a word they use, like weird and dainty. You always see it in a newspaper. Ah—got her. Here she is—‘The excitement may be better imagined than described'—no, that's about the Gymkhana—here we are: "‘Master Wilfred Wilson, the son of a well-known and 18