"Well, now, there's quite a lot of truth in that, considering that it's
one of Bill's yarns. The swordfish does carry a sword. And he does
jab it into things, whales, sharks, boats, seals, anything whatever
that he thinks might be good to eat or that he does not like the looks
of. And _you_ are quite correct in thinking that the lake would not be
a health-resort for us if it was occupied by a healthy swordfish. But
in one particular Bill has got you badly mixed up. The swordfish
carries his sword not in his tail, but on the tip of his snout more
like a bayonet than a sword. I don't think Bill has ever been at all
intimate with swordfish--eh, what?"

The Babe shook his blonde head sadly over this instance of Bill's
inaccuracy.

"And are they as big as Bill says?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes! He's all right _there_!" assented Uncle Andy. "When they
are quite grown up they are sometimes as long as a canoe, a seventeen
or eighteen foot canoe. And they _are_ quick as 'greased lightning'
all right!"

"But how big are they when they're little?" pursued the Babe, getting
around to his favorite line of investigation.

"Well now, that depends on how little you take them!" answered Uncle
Andy. "As they are hatched out of tiny, pearly eggs no bigger than a
white currant, which the little silver crabs can play marbles with on
the white sand of the sea-bottom till they get tired of the game and
eat them up, you've got a lot of sizes to choose from in a growing
sword-fish."