"'Say,' she cries out, swimming around most exasperatingly, 'you're a nice old party. What do your folks know you by?'
"I told her my name was none of her business and that I was a married man and that I wished she'd go away and let me go on with my night watching.
"'I'm married too,' says she, in a conversational tone, 'to an awful mess. You're pretty fuzzy, but I'd swap him for you any day. Come on into the sea with me and we'll swim down to Gold Fish Arms and stick around until we get a drink. I know lots of the boys down there. There ain't no liquor dealers where I come from,' and with this if you will believe me she flips a bucket full of water into my lap with the neatest little scale spangled tail you ever seen.
"'No,' says I, 'my mind's made up. I ain't agoing to go swimming around with no semi-stewed, altogether nude mermaid. It ain't right. It ain't Christian.'
"'I got a hat,' says she reflectively, 'and I ain't so stewed but wot I can't swim. Wot do you think of that hat? One of the boys stole it from his old woman and gave it to me. Come on, let's take a swim.'
"'No,' says I, 'I ain't agoing.'
"'Just 'cause I ain't all dolled up in a lot of clothes?' says she.
"'Partly,' says I, 'and partly because you are a mermaid. I ain't agoing messing around through the water with no mermaid. I ain't never done it and I ain't agoing to begin it now.'
"'If I get some clothes on and dress all up pretty, will you go swimming with me then?' she asks pleadingly.
"'Well that's another thing,' says I, noncommittal like.