"What's the club going to do to-day?" asked Bertie Rokeby one morning, looking somewhat damp and moist after his swim. ("He never _will_ dry himself properly," said Mrs. Rokeby; "he just gets into his clothes as he is, and he's sitting down on the old boat just where the sun has melted the pitch, and it will be sure to stick to his trousers.") "Don't know," said Harold Wright, lolling comfortably in the shade of a rock, with his head on his rolled-up jacket; "too hot to race round with the thermometer over 70°. I shall stay where I am, with a book." "Get up, you fat porpoise! You'll grow too lazy to walk. Unless you mean to stop and swat at Greek like old Arthur." "No, thanks," laughed Harold. "I'm not in for a scholarship yet, thank goodness! I'm just going to kick my heels here. The _dolce far niente_, you know." "Let us go down to the quay," suggested Charlie Chester, "and watch the boats come in. It's stunning to see them packing all the herrings into barrels, and flinging the mackerel about. Some of the men are ever so decent: they let you help to haul in the ropes, and take you on board sometimes." "Shall we go too?" said Belle, who, with her arm as usual round Isobel's waist, stood among the group of children; "it's rather fun down by the quay, if you don't get _too_ near the fish.--Are you coming, Aggie?" "Yes, if Charlotte and mademoiselle will go too.--Mam'zelle, voulez-vous aller avec nous à voir le fish-market?" Mademoiselle shivered slightly, as if Aggie's French set her teeth on edge. "Qu'est-ce que c'est, chère enfant, cette 'feesh markeet'?" she replied. "I don't know whether I can quite explain it in French," replied Aggie; but seeing the Rokebys come up, she made a desperate effort to sustain her character as a linguist. "C'est l'endroit où on vend le poisson, vous savez." Unfortunately she pronounced _poisson_ like the English "poison," and mademoiselle held up her dainty little hands with a shriek of horror. "Vere zey sell ze poison! Non, mon enfant! You sall nevaire take me zere! Madame Wright, see not permit zat you go! C'est impossible!" "It's all right, mademoiselle," said Arthur, taking his nose for a moment out of his dictionary. "Aggie only meant _poisson_. The mater'll let the kids go, if you want to take 'em." "Come along, mademoiselle, do!" said Charlie Chester cordially. "Venez avec moi! That's about all the French I can talk, because at school we only learn to write exercises about pens and ink and paper, and the gardener's son, and lending your knife to the uncle of the baker; a jolly silly you'd be if you did, too! You'd never get it back. Suivez-moi! And come and see the _poisson_. You'll enjoy it if you do." "I'm sure she wouldn't," said Charlotte Wright, who liked to keep her governess to herself. "We haven't time, either--we must do our translation before dinner; and Joyce and Eric can't go unless we're there to look after them."