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your mermaids! Damn your webfingered women! Damn your swimming clubs! Damn all of you! I'm going
mad! You hear? Mad, mad, mad! One more word out of either of you and I'll have you suspended from
the Union!"
"Ow, ow, ow!" barked Alice.
Iantha had finished her fish. She started to pull the bathing suit down again; changed her
mind, pulled it off over her head, rolled it up, and threw it across the pool. Halfway across it
unfolded and floated down onto the water. The mermaid then cleared her throat, took a deep breath,
and, in a clear ringing soprano, launched into the heart-wrenching strains of:
"Rhein gold! Reines Gold, Wie lauter und hell Leuchtest hold du uns! tim dich, du kiares-"
"lantha!"
"What is it, Markee?" she giggled.
"I said, it's getting time to go home!"
"Oh, but I do not want to go home. I am having much fun.
"Nun wir klagen!
Gebt uris das Gold-"
"No, really, Iantha, we've got to go." He laid a hand on her shoulder. The touch made his
blood tingle. At the same time, it was plain that the remains of lantha's carefully husbanded
sobriety had gone. That last race in fresh water - had been like three oversized Manhattans.
Through Vining's head ran a paraphrase of an old song:
"What shall we do with a drunken mermaid
At three o'clock in the morning?"
"Oh, Markee, always you are so serious when people are 'aving fun. But if you say please I
will come."
"Very well, please come. Here, put your arm around my neck, and I'll carry you to your
chair."
Such, indeed was Mark Vining's intention. He got one hand around her waist and another
under her tail. Then he tried to straighten up. He had forgotten that lantha's tail was a good
deal heavier than it looked. In fact, that long and powerful structure of bone, muscle, and
cartilage ran the mermaid's total weight up to the surprising figure of over two hundred and fifty
pounds. The result of his attempt was to send himself and his burden headlong into the pool. To
the spectators it looked as though he had picked Iantha up and then deliberately dived in with
her.
He came up and shook the water out of his head. lantha popped up in front of him.
"So!" she gurgled. "You are 'aving fun with lantha! I think you are serious, but you want
to play games! All right, I show you!" She
brought her palm down smartly, filling Vining's mouth and nose with water. He struck out blindly
for the edge of.the pool. He was a powerful swimmer, but his street clothes hampered him. Another
splash cascaded over his luckless head. He got his eyes clear in time to see Iantha's head go down
and her flukes up.
"Markeeee!" The voice was behind him. He turned, and saw Lantha holding a large black
block of soft rubber. This object was a plaything for users of the Hotel Creston's pool, and it
had been left lying on the bottom during the meet.
"Catch!" cried Iantha gaily, and let drive. The block took Vining neatly between the eyes.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the wet concrete. He sat up and sneezed. His head
seemed to be full of ammonia. Louis Connaught put away the smelling-salts bottle, and Laird shoved
a glass containing a snort of whiskey at him. Beside him was lantha, sitting on her curled tail.
She was actually crying.
"Oh, Markee, you are not dead? You are all right? Oh, I am so sorry! I did not mean to 'it
you."
"I'm all right, I guess," he said thickly. "Just an accident. Don't worry."
"Oh, I am so glad!" She grabbed his neck and gave it a hug that made its vertebrae creak
alarmingly.
"Now," he said, "if I could dry out my clothes. Louie, could you- "Sure," said Connaught, helping
him up. "We'll put your clothes
on the radiator in the men's shower room, and I can lend you a pair of pants and a sweatshirt
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while they're drying."
When Vining came out in his borrowed garments, he had to push his way through the throng
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