“Aunt Judy!”
“Stop!” was the answer; and the hand of the speaker went up, with the slate-pencil in it, enforcing silence while she pursued her calculations.
“Say, back 42 inches; then tail (half back) 21, and head given, 9, that’s 30, and 30 and 9, 39 back.—Won’t do! Second error: three inches—What’s the matter, No. 6? You surely have not begun to quarrel already?”
“Oh, no,” answered No. 6, with her nose flattened against the window-pane. “But please, Aunt Judy, No. 8 won’t have the oyster-shell trimming round his garden any longer, he says; he says it looks so rubbishy. But as my garden joins his down the middle, if he takes away the oyster-shells all round his, then one of my sides—the one in the middle, I mean—will be left bare, don’t you see? and I want to keep the oyster-shells all round may garden, because mamma says there are still some zoophytes upon them. So how is it to be?”
What a perplexity! The fish with his nine-inch head, and his tail as long as his head and half of his back, was a mere nothing to it.
Aunt Judy threw open the window.
“My dear No. 6,” answered she, “yours is the great boundary-line question about which nations never do agree, but go squabbling on till some one has to give way first. There is but one plan for settling it, and that is, for each of you to give up a piece of your gardens to make a road to run between. Now if you’ll both give way at once, and consent to this, I will come out to you myself, and leave my fish till the evening. It’s much too fine to stay in doors, I feel; and I can give you all something real to do.”
“I’ll give way, I’m sure, Aunt Judy,” cried No. 6, quite glad to be rid of the dispute; “and so will you, won’t you, No. 8?” she added, appealing to that young gentleman, who stood with his pinafore full of dirty oyster-shells, not quite understanding the meaning of what was said.
“I’ll what?” inquired he.
“Oh, never mind! Only throw the oyster-shells down, and come with Aunt Judy. It will be much better fun than staying here.”