I whirled around, and paused aghast. Mrs. Ames was slumped down in her chair, and her eyes were vacuous. Her mouth was wide open and her fat arms were making wriggling motions as though her hands were flippers and she was trying to swim. She looked like a fish out of water—certainly not like a mermaid.
Slowly, I turned back to O'Graeme. I grabbed his arm and he looked up, obviously startled. "Listen," I said. "What did you say an overdose of this Breath of Beelzebub would do?"
His popping green eyes opened wide. "Why, darling," he said, "how should I know? And how did I get over here?"
I sort of swayed on my feet and closed my eyes. I was looking down at a bald-headed little man, and hearing Slane O'Graeme's voice, but—but—
It couldn't be! I opened my eyes and looked across the tank at Margie Ames. My Margie. Her beautiful blue eyes were wide with astonishment and she was staring down at her own arms and hands in the blankest sort of bewilderment. Then she looked up and caught my eye and said, "Mr. Dineen, what the devil—Didn't I tell you that six or seven drops would—"
I shook my head and closed my eyes again. And something seemed to slip. I didn't open them, but they were open just the same, and all I was seeing was a blur of motion and I seemed to be going in circles through something wet and blue. I got dizzy and tried to close my eyes again, but they wouldn't close. But I did manage to stop moving—and I shuddered, and the shudder wasn't because the water in the tank was cold.
A beautiful young woman, with long flowing hair of gold, swam by. But she didn't have any clothes on and where her legs should have been there was the tail of a fish. I thought suddenly here was my chance to kiss a mermaid, but she flung some sea weed in my face and ducked into what looked like a cave.
I tried to look out of the tank, but everything was distorted and I couldn't make out much. I could hear sounds as though several people were talking at once, but the sounds, too, were distorted and I couldn't make out what was being said.
I tried to groan and found I couldn't do that, either. And that made me, strangely, want to giggle. And, oddly enough, I was giggling.
Then someone was saying, "Stop that!" and shaking my shoulder and it didn't seem to be wet and cold any more. My shoulder was bare, and the hand hurt and I looked up, and suddenly a nursery song of long ago that I'd heard in my childhood came back to me and I started to sing, "I fwam and I fwam right over the—" until the shock of hearing my voice come out a rich throaty contralto made me stop and bring my eyes into focus.