"There is no end to his knowledge. I was fishing one day last summer down over the dam at Broad River, and caught a large cat-fish. My line was too slender to haul him up, and I was considering what to do when, much to my astonishment, Pete jumped over, ran out on the stones, and caught the struggling fish in his mouth. That was the first time I ever heard of a dog going fishing." "The rascal seems to reason, too. Once I belonged to the choir, you remember, and of course I could not allow Pete to go to rehearsals, although he was in the habit of following me almost everywhere else. So, after many futile attempts to send him back, and consequent annoyance at the church, one Saturday before starting, I shut him up in the carriage-house and fastened the door. I looked back several times but saw nothing of Pete, and was congratulating myself upon the success of my plan, when, just before I reached the church, at the corner of Huron and South Streets, there he was waiting for me. He had escaped, gone down town another way, and did not show himself until I was so far from home that he knew I would not take him back. Then, what did he do, as soon as he saw me coming, but up on his hind legs with the most deprecating air, sitting there, a ridiculous little black image on the pavement, so that everybody laughed to see him." The meal was a merry one although the meat was gone and the cream sour; there was an abundance of cake, the coffee was strong, and the good spirits of the company supplied the rest. "There is no more sugar for your coffee, Mr. Warrington," said Edith Chase, as she poured out Hugh's second cup. "Smile on it, please," said Hugh, gayly. "Now, Miss Chase, if you neglect my cup any longer," said Walter Hart, "I shall grow desperate; I shall be obliged to give you--" "Fitz," interrupted Hugh. "Bad puns are excluded from this picnic," said Rose Saxon; "and, by the way, Mr. Warrington, why do you drop the first syllable of your name?" "Because it is never pronounced rightly," said Hugh; "it is either called 'Fitz-He-yew,' or 'Fitchew.'" "Pronunciation is a matter of taste," said Mr. Leslie, laughing. "A lady once asked me if I did not think Walter Scott's _Rock-a-by_ was a 'sweet thing.' At first I supposed she was alluding to some cradle-song with which I was not familiar, and it was sometime before I discovered that she meant _Rokeby_." "I have often been puzzled myself with the names of books," said Aunt Faith. "Years ago there was a book published called _Ivar or the Skujts-boy_? I liked it but I never dared to venture on the name." "And since then," said Mr. Gay, "the names of the heroes and heroines in magazine-stories are really astonishing. The favorite letter, now is 'Y.' They have 'y's' in the most unexpected places. Such names as 'Vivian' and 'Willis,' for instance. They spell them 'Vyvyan' and 'Wyllys'"