Uncle Andy seemed to divine his difficulty.
"I mean," he explained, "isn't he a big one? _Tremendous_?"
At this again the Babe looked doubtful. The fish was certainly a very
beautiful one; but to the Babe's eyes it did not seem in any way
remarkable for size. Yet he did not like to appear to disagree with
Uncle Andy.
"Is it _big_?" he inquired politely. "Bill says there's some fish
bigger than a house."
Uncle Andy looked at him askance.
"Seems to me," said he, "you're mighty hard to please to-day. And,
anyhow, Bill talks nonsense. They're not fish, those monsters he was
telling you about. They're _whales_."
"But they live in the water, don't they?" protested the Babe in
surprise.
"Of course!" agreed Uncle Andy, wrapping his big trout up in wet grass
and seating himself on a handy log for a smoke.
"Then why aren't they fish?" persisted the Babe, ever anxious to get to
the root of a matter.
"Because they're not," replied Uncle Andy, impatient at having let
himself in for explanations, which he always disliked. "They're
animals, just as much as a dog or a muskrat."
The Babe wrinkled his forehead in perplexity. And Uncle Andy relented.
"You see," he continued, "they're not fish, because they cannot breathe
under water like fish can, but have to come to the surface for air,
just as we would have to.
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