Biffins threw himself back in his chair. 'Ruined! ruined!' he cried. 'Lotty, my infant prodigy and violinist, gone! And now Chops my merman!'
The very next morning the Belhivey Chronicle came out with a long article headed:
'The Queerest Show on Earth.
merman bubble burst.'
It commenced by describing what is still known as Mermaid Bay, entirely surrounded on three sides by tall, perpendicular rocks on which not even a seamew could find footing. Then it went on to say:
'It will be in the recollection of our worthy fishermen readers that it was here where the mermaid and merman appeared to many people. It was at the time impossible not to believe that these were real denizens of the deep, human though their faces and arms and shoulders were. They appeared suddenly, and as quickly dived and were seen no more.
'But now the bubble has burst, and it is we who have burst it. A curious cave has been found on the wooded grounds of D—— MacD——, Esq., which is always full of water, but which has a wide opening below its rocky side opening into the sea beyond. Any ordinary diver can easily, therefore, take a header, swim through the aperture, and find himself in the open sea under the cliffs; and, there disporting as a mermaid, or a sea-lion if he likes, quite as easily dive and make his way into the cave again.
'And this is precisely what occurred. Then the great tank in the Queerest Show on Earth was a divided one, and built on precisely the same lines. That is all.
'We are sorry for that enterprising showman, Biffins Lee, Esq. He is certainly clever; and if he does as well in his next venture as he has done in this he will be able to marry and settle down for life.
'We are sorry for Lee,' the article concluded; 'but we are still more so for those well-known scientists or savants, Professors A., B., and C., let us call them, who wrote such splendid papers on this mermaid question, and delivered lectures thereon all over the country, thus literally playing into the capacious and rapacious pockets of Biffins Lee. We heartily hope that these scientists may find some handy bag in which to hide their sorely diminished heads.'
Biffins Lee was reading this staggerer, as he called it, for the second time when Crona herself was announced. She had Joe on her shoulder. It was Mary who had ushered her in.