divinity which, in the press of other affairs, I had somehow permitted to slip my mind?”

“Disposer and sole archetype of the seven magnanimities, you speak the truth. For the five remaining drops, as I was trying to tell you when you kept interrupting me, O my lord, and beloved of my heart, and joy of both my eyes, were intended for the five human senses of the young man about whom I was then rather foolish; and upon whom I meant to bestow immortality and eternal youth. The first drop, inasmuch as the Amrita confers a never-ending vigorousness, I had of course already placed. So my Father (whose name be exalted!) smote us both with lightnings, in his impetuous way, and tumbled us both from out of the Home of the Heavenly Ones into this river. My young man was thus drowned before I had the chance to confer upon him any of the favors which I greatly fear your superior strength and your pertinacity are now about to force from me—”

Gerald replied: “I really do think you would get on far more quickly with your story if you were to keep both of these like this. The position, you see, is much more American: it lacks that earlier air of such personal freedom as a democracy does not think well of.”

“Light of the age, I hear and I obey. Yet all my tale has been revealed to your consideration—”

“Yes,” Gerald assented, “but your history interests me far more—”

“Far more than what, O cruel and resplendent one?”

“Why, far more than I can say, of course. So let us get on with it!”

“But my sad history is now as refined glass before your discerning glance. It suffices to add that the immortal part of my young man was happily removed from the waters of this river, and is now worshipped as a god in Lytreia. But for me, alas! the squirrel of calamity continued to revolve in the cage of divine wrath. For, so perfectly ridiculous is the way my Father (whose name be exalted!) behaves when the least thing upsets him, that I was condemned through the length of nine thousand years to assume certain official duties in the waters of this river, in the repugnant shape of a crocodile.”

But with that statement Gerald took prompt issue. “What may be your official duties as the guardian of these waters I can no more guess than I can guess how your visitors happen to be so careless about leaving their skulls behind. That really is a sort of slapdash and inconsiderate behavior which I cannot condone 

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