"Hold tight to that child," she said. "If you ever drop him that big pike would gobble him right up." "He don't eat babies," replied the husband, calmly. "Besides, it ain't a pike; it's a sturgeon." "Well, he looks awful mean, anyway." The husband, merely to reassure her, moved a few feet further along and let the baby lie over his shoulder and watch the little fish chase one another. The aisles were crowded full of people, who had found that a visit to the east end of the Fisheries building was almost as good as a dive to the bottom of the ocean. It is in this place where you may stand with coral reefs and ring-tailed shells on either side and watch strange fish with spikes on their backs open their mouths and gape until each one looks like the letter O. The sea turtles stand on their heads and wave yellow flippers at the wide-eyed crowd, and a devil crab makes all the women shiver and pull the children away from the glass. In one aquarium there are so many catfish that they make the water cloudy. In front of one of the cases there was a learned discussion. The label simply said "Anemone." On the rocks and shells were some things shaped like stars and mushrooms, except that they were moss-colored and had whiskers floating out in the water. "Annymone, what the dickens are they?" asked a man with a linen duster. "Some kind of sea-weed, I believe," said an elderly gentleman in a patronizing manner. "No, they ain't they're animals, broke in a third. "But, sir, they are stuck fast there and can't move," said the elderly gentleman. "I know that but they reach out with those whiskers and grab stuff and feed themselves that way." "Well, that's the first time I ever heard of anything feedin' itself with its whiskers." One of the young women looked at the sheepshead aquarium and murmured: "What long bills they have." Her escort smiled in a knowing way and said: "That is not a bill; that is a proboscis, I believe. I wish I had a hook and line." A Columbian guard said he was tired of hearing the same old jokes, for nearly every young man who came in with a girl said: "When I come back here I'll bring a hook and line." They finished the day here, and wearied with the noise and tumult of the streets were glad to find rest in their rooms when evening came. [Illustration: "NEXT TIME I'LL BRING A HOOK AND LINE."] The sweetness of this rural family was nowhere better to be seen than when they were resting at home in the evening after the fatiguing experiences of the day.