"I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of _Kutscher_ quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech." Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and looking down at Anna inquired her commands. It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains. "What _is_ fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed that the man should be waiting capless in the rain. "Letty, what's the word for fish?" inquired Susie sternly. "Fish?" repeated Letty, looking stupid. "Fish?" echoed Miss Leech, trying to help. "_Fisch?_" said the coachman himself, catching at the word. "Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am," cried Anna blushing and showing her dimples, "it's _Fisch_, of course. _Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?_" The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially herrings. "What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief. "He says there are herrings in the sea." "Is the man a fool?" Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very pleasant. "_Aber im Wagen_," persisted Anna, "_wo ist Fisch im Wagen?_" The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in the least knowing what she meant, "_Nein, nein, gnädiges Fräulein_," and evidently hoped she would be satisfied. "_Aber es riecht, es riecht!_" cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure. His face brightened again. "_Ach so--jawohl, jawohl_," he exclaimed cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous that his new mistress should be pleased. Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt reassured. "What does he say?" asked Susie. "Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been rubbing the leather with."