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The Skies Are Falling everybody miserable, and a lot of people who think they are being funny when they aren't—dreadful."

The party was now walking along a smooth grassy path, between tall, clipped box hedges—at least they looked like box hedges, but when Mavis stroked the close face of one she found that it was not stiff box, but soft seaweed.

"Are we in the water or not?" said she, stopping suddenly.

"That depends on what you mean by water. Water's a thing human beings can't breathe, isn't it? Well, you are breathing. So this can't be water."

"I see that," said Mavis, "but the soft seaweed won't stand up in air, and it does in water."

"Oh, you've found out, have you?" said the Mermaid. "Well, then, perhaps it is water. Only you see it can't be. Everything's like that down here."

"Once you said you lived in water, and you wanted to be wet," said Mavis.

"Mer-people aren't responsible for what they say in your world. I told you that, you know," the Mermaid reminded them.

Presently they came to a little coral bridge over a stream that flowed still and deep. "But if what we're in is water, what's that?" said Bernard, pointing down.

"Ah, now you're going too deep for me," said the Mermaid, "at least if I were to answer I should go too deep for you. Come on—we shall be too late for the banquet."

"What do you have for the banquet?" Bernard asked; and the Mermaid answered sweetly: "Things to eat."

"And to drink?"

"It's no use," said she; "you can't get at it that way. We drink—but you wouldn't understand."

Here the grassy road widened, and they came onto a terrace of mother-of-pearl, very smooth and shining. Pearly steps led down 85