"Mermaid," I said, "I apologize. I was unaware that I had the honour to speak to the lady of the manor."
"Well, if you didn't really know who I was—— But you mustn't be dull."
I drew her attention to a sailing ship in the distance. "Now, that," I said, "is what I call a really good ship."
"Barque!"
"Barque, I mean. It must be—"
"About five thousand tons"
"Burthen. Exactly. By the way, I never know what that really means unless it means that, if you wanted to lift it, you couldn't."
"Try displacement."
"Thank you. It was off just such an one that I was cast away two years ago come Michaelmas. We were just standing by in the offing, when she sterruck with a grinding crash. There was a matter of seventy souls aboard, and I shall never forget the look on the captain's face as the ship's cat stole his place in the stern-sheets of the jolly-boat. I was thrown up on a desert island, I was. You ought to have seen me milking the goats on Spyglass Hill."
"Did you wear a goatskin cap?"