A "clam chowder" is a very savory kind of thick soup, of which the
clam is a chief ingredient. I put in this note for the benefit of
little English boys and girls, if it should chance that this story
should find its way to their country.] or oysters, or other
shell-fish, of which he was very fond. Having gathered a good basket
full, he was about returning, when his eye fell upon the group of
great shells in which Little Jacket and his friends were reposing, all
sound asleep.

[Illustration: THE GIANT PICKS UP LITTLE JACKET'S BEDROOM.]

"Now," thought Huggermugger, "my wife has often asked me to fetch home
one of these big shells. She thinks it would look pretty on her
mantel-piece, with sunflowers sticking in it. Now I may as well
gratify her, though I can't exactly see the use of a shell without a
fish in it. Mrs. Huggermugger must see something in these shells that
I don't."

So he didn't stop to choose, but picked up the first one that came to
his hand, and put it in his basket. It was the very one in which
Little Jacket was asleep. The little sailor slept too soundly to know
that he was travelling, free of expense, across the country at a
railroad speed, in a carriage made of a giant's fish-basket.
Huggermugger reached his house, mounted his huge stairs, set down his
basket, and placed the big shell on the mantel-piece.

"Wife," says he, "here's one of those good-for-nothing big shells you
have often asked me to bring home."

"Oh, what a beauty," says she, as she stuck a sunflower in it, and