The author: "Yes, puss; didn't you order me to write you a tale with
tiny, tiny, tiny people in it? Well, here they are. They are
microscopic."
Ida: "But of course it is not a true story; it is composed, as you call
it."
The author: "It is a romance, Ida; but it is a romance of natural
history, because, you know, there _are_ creatures called polyps that
live in the sea, and are so small you have to get a microscope to watch
their motions, and they often eat each other, or swallow each other
alive, and do all sorts of strange things; and so I call my story--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mr and Mrs Polypus: A Tale of the Coralline Sea, a tale of the Indian
Ocean, a romance of the coralline sea.
"Far down beneath the blue waves lived my hero and heroine all alone
together in their crystal home, with its floors of coral and its windows
of diamonds. The cottage in which they dwelt was of a very strange
shape indeed, being nothing like any building ever you saw on the face
of the earth--but it suited them well--and all around it was a beautiful
garden of living plants. Well, all plants possess life; but these were,
in reality, living animals, living beings, shaped like flowers, but as
capable of eating and drinking as you or I am, only they were all on
stalks, and could only catch their food as it floated past them. This
seems somewhat awkward, but then they were used to it, and custom is
everything. I don't believe these animals growing on stalks ever wished
to walk any oftener than human beings wished to fly.
"Mr and Mrs Polypus, as you may easily guess, were husband and wife,
but for all that I am very sorry to have to tell you that they did not
always live very peaceably together. They used to have little
disagreements now and then; for they were only polyps, you must
remember, and smaller far than water-babies. Their little quarrels were
always about their food, for, if the truth must be told, Mr Polypus was
somewhat of a tyrant to his tiny wife.
"Mr Polypus had many faults; he was, among other things, a very great
glutton; so much so, that he did not mind his wife starving so long as
he himself had enough to eat.
"Now a word or two about the personal appearance of my principal
characters. They were indeed a funny-looking couple, and so small, that
unless you had had good eyes, and a tolerably good microscope as well,
it would have been impossible for you to see much of what they were
doing at all. They were both the same shape, and had only one leg
a-piece--a comparatively thick one though--so that when they walked
about it was hop, hop, hop on one end, and very ridiculous it looked.
But then, if they had only one leg each, Nature had made it up to them
in the matter of arms; for instead of two only, as you have, they had a
whole row of them all round their shoulders. Wonderfully movable arms
they were too, and seemed all joints together, and neither he nor his
wife could keep from whirling their arms about whenever they were
excited. They had, in fact, so many arms that they could afford to
place two pair akimbo, fold one or two pairs across the chest, and still
have a few left to shake in each other's faces when scolding; not that
she did much of that, for she was very mild and obedient.
"The only food that Mr and Mrs Polypus got was little fishes, which
came floating in through the window to them, or down the chimney, or in
by the door; so that they never required to go to the market to buy any
provisions; they only had to wait comfortably at their own fireside
until breakfast or dinner swam in to them of its own accord. But this
did not satisfy the craving appetite of Mr Polypus; so he used often to
be from home, swimming up and down the streets, or hopping about at the
bottom of the village of Coral Town, where fish did most abound; and it
was only when he was away from home on a fishing expedition that poor
pretty Mrs Polypus used to get anything to eat, for she was a quiet
little woman, and always stopped at home. Poor thing, the neighbours
were often very sorry for her; for hers had been a very sad story. For
all she was so quiet now, she was once the gayest of the gay, the life
and soul of the village of Coral Town. At every ball or party that was
given, Peggy--for so she was then called--was the star; and whenever
Peggy countenanced a picnic or an angling match, all the village went
too and took his wife with him.
"When Peggy was still in her teens she fell in love with gay, rollicking
young Mr Pompey, the potassium merchant. You know it was all potassium
that they burned in Coral Town, because that burns under water, and
coals won't; and instead of the streets and houses being lighted with
gas or oil at nights, they were illuminated with phosphorus. For the
next six months after Pompey met pretty Peggy at a ball, their young
lives were but as one happy dream; for Pompey loved Peggy dearly, and
Peggy loved Pompey. Away down at the bottom of Coral Town was a
beautiful submarine garden, with fresh-water shrubs of every shade and
flowers of every hue, and there were lonely caves and grottoes and
groves, and all kinds of lovely scenery imaginable; and here the lovers
often met, and along the winding pathways they ofttimes hopped together.
'Twas here Pompey first declared his passion, and first beheld the
love-light in his Peggy's beaming eyes. One evening they were seated
side by side in a coral cave. Everything around them was peaceful and
still, the water clear and pellucid, and unbroken by a single ripple.
They had sat thus for hours; for the time had flown very quickly, and
Pompey had been reading a delightful book to Peggy, until it got so dark
he couldn't see. Far up above them were the phosphorescent lights in
the village twinkling like stars in heaven's firmament. The cave in
which they sat was lighted up by a large diamond, which sparkled in the
roof, and diffused a soft rose light all around, while here and there on
the floor lay strange-shaped musical shells, which ever and anon gave
forth sounds like Aeolian harps.
"`Ah!' sighed Pompey, and--
"`Ah!' sighed Peggy, and--
"`When shall we wed?' said Pompey, and--
"`Whenever you please,' said she.
"`Oh! oh!' cried a terrible voice at their elbows, `there'll be two
words to that bargain. He! he! There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and
the lip. Ha! ha!'
"And behold! there in the mouth of the cave stood an ugly old male polyp
grinning and bobbing at them like some dreadful ogre.
"`How dare you, sir!' said Potassium Pompey, springing from his seat,
and striding with a couple of hops towards the new-comer--`how dare you
intrude yourself on the privacy of affianced lovers?'
"`Intrude? Ho! ho! Privacy? He! he! Affianced? Ha! ha!' replied the
old polyp. `I'll soon let you know that, young jackanapes.'
"`Sir,' cried Pompey, `this insolence shall not go unpunished. Unhand
me, Peggy.'
"`Oh! hush, hush, pray hush,' cried poor Peggy, wringing a few of her
hands; `it's my father, Pompey, my poor father.'
"`That fright your father?' replied Pompey; `but there, for your sake,
my Peggy, and for the sake of his grey hairs, I will spare him.'
"`Come along, Miss Malapert; adieu, Mr Jackanapes,' cried the enraged
father; and he dragged his daughter from the cave, but not before she
had time to cast one tearful look of fond farewell on her lover, not
before she had time to extend ten hands to him behind her back, and he
had fondly pressed them all.
"Peggy's father was a miserly old polyp, who lived in a superb residence
in the most fashionable part of Coral Town. He had servants who went or
came at his beck or call, a splendid chariot of pure gold to ride in,
with pure-bred fish-horses, and the only thing he ever had to annoy him
was that when he awoke in the morning he could not think of any new
pleasure for the day that had dawned. Every day he had a lovely little
polyp boy killed for his dinner--for polyps are all cannibals--and if
that meal didn't please him, then he used to eat one of the flunkeys.
But for all his riches, he was not a gentleman. He had made all his
money as a marine store dealer, and then retired to live at his mansion,
with his only daughter Peggy.
"Now, for the next many days poor Potassium Pompey was a very unhappy
polyp indeed. He went about his business very listlessly, neglected to
eat, grew awfully thin, and let his beard grow, and people even said
that he sometimes sold them bad potassium. As for Peggy, she was locked
up in a room all by herself, and never saw any one at all, except her
father, who five times a day came regularly to feed her, and when she
refused to eat he cruelly crammed it down her throat. He was only a
polyp, remember.
"`I'll fatten the gipsy,' he said to himself, `and then marry _her_ to
my old friend Peterie. He can support a wife, for I always see him
fishing, and he can't possibly eat all he catches himself.'
"So it was all arranged that the wedding should come off, and one day,
as Pompey was returning disconsolately from his office, he met a great
and noisy crowd, who were huzzaing and waving their arms in the water,
and shouting, `Long live the happy, happy pair!' And presently up drove
the old miser's chariot, with six fish-horses, and polyp postillions to
match; and seated there beside his detested rival, Pompey caught a
glimpse of his loved and lost darling Peggy; thereupon Pompey made up
his mind to drown himself right off. So he went and sought out the
blackest, deepest pool, and plunged in. But polyps are so used to the
water that they cannot drown, and so the more Pompey tried to drown
himself, the more the water wouldn't drown him; so at last he wiped his
eyes, and--
"`What a fool I am,' said he, `to attempt death for the sake of one fair
lady, when there are hundreds of polyps as beautiful as she in Coral
Town. I'll go home and work, and make riches, then I'll marry ten
wives, and hold them all in my arms at once.'
"But Pompey couldn't forget his early love as quickly as he wished to,
and often of an evening, when he knew that Mr Polypus was away at some
of his gluttonous carousals, Pompey would steal to the window of her
house and keek in through the chinks of the shutters, and sigh to see
his beloved Peggy sitting all so lonely by herself at the little table,
on which the phosphorus lamp was burning. And at the same time--
although Pompey did not know it--Peggy would be gazing so sadly into the
potassium fire, and thinking of him; she really could not help it,
although she knew it was wrong, and poor pretty Mrs Polypus couldn't be
expected to be very cheery, could she?
"Well, one night she was sitting all alone like that, wondering what was
keeping her husband so long, and if he would beat her, as usual, when he
did come home. She hadn't had a bit to eat for many, many hours, and
was just beginning to feel hungry and faint, when a tiny wee fish swam
in by the chimney, and pop! Mrs Polypus had it down her throat in a
twinkling; but as ill-luck would have it, who should return at the very
moment but her wicked husband. He had evidently been eating even more
than usual, and looked both flushed and angry.
"`_Now_, Mrs Polypus,' he began, `I saw that. How dared you, when you
knew I was coming home to supper, and there wasn't a morsel in the
larder?'
"`Oh! please, Peterie,' said poor little Mrs Polypus, beginning to cry,
`I really didn't mean to; but I was _so_ hungry, and--'
"`Hungry?' roared the husband; `how dared you to be hungry?--how dared
you be anything at all, in fact? But there, I shall not irritate myself
by talking to you. Bring it back again.'
"`Oh! if you please, Peterie--' cried Mrs Polypus.
"`Bring it back again, I say,' cried Mr Polypus, making all his arms
swing round and round like a wheel, till you could hardly have seen one
of them, and finally crossing them on his chest; and, leaning on the
back of the chair, he looked sternly down on his spouse, and
said--`Disgorge at once!'
"`I won't, then, and, what is more, I shan't; there!' said the wee
woman, for even a woman as well as a worm will turn when very much
trodden upon.
"`Good gracious me!' cried Mr Polypus, fairly aghast with astonishment;
`does--she--actually--dare--to--defy me?' but `Ho! ho!' he added,
likewise `He! he!' and `we'll see;' and he strode to the window and
bolted it, and strode to the door and bolted that; then he took the
phosphorus lamp and extinguished it.
"`It'll be so dark, Peterie,' said his wife, beginning to be frightened.
"`There is light enough for what I have to do,' said Peterie, sternly.
Then he opened a great yawning mouth, and he seized her first by one
arm, and then by another, until he had the whole within his grasp, and
she all the time kicking with her one leg, and screaming--
"`Oh! please don't, Peterie. Oh! Peterie, don't.'
"But he heeded not her cries, which every moment became weaker and more
far-away like, until they ceased entirely, and the unhappy Mrs Polypus
was nowhere to be seen. _Her husband had swallowed her alive_!
"As soon as he had done so he sat down by the fire, looking rather
swollen, and feeling big and not altogether comfortable; but how could
he expect to be, after swallowing his wife? He leaned his head on three
arms and gazed pensively into the fire.
"`After all,' he said to himself, `I may have been just a little too
hasty, for she wasn't at all a bad little woman, taking her all-in-all.
Heigho! I fear I'll never see her like again.'
"Hark! a loud knocking at the door. He starts and listens, and trembles
like the guilty thing he is. The knocking was repeated in one
continuous stream of rat-tats.
"`Hullo! Peterie,' cried a voice; `open the door.'
"`Who is there?' asked Peterie at last.
"`Why, man, it is I--Potassium Pompey. Whatever is up with you to-day
that you are barred and bolted like this? Afraid of thieves? Eh?'
"`No,' said Peterie, undoing the fastenings and letting Pompey come in;
`it isn't that exactly. The fact is, I wasn't feeling very well, and
just thought I would lie down for a little while.'
"`You don't look very ill, anyhow,' said Pompey; `and you are actually
getting stouter, I think!'
"`Well,' replied Peterie, `you see, I've been out fishing, and had a
good dinner, and perhaps I've eaten rather more, I believe, than is good
for me.'
"`Shouldn't wonder,' said Pompey, sarcastically; for the truth is, he
had been keeking through the chinks of the shutters, and had seen the
whole tragedy.
"`A decided case of dropsy, I should think,' added Pompey.
"Peterie groaned.
"`Take a seat,' he said to Pompey. `I believe you are my friend, and I
want to have a little talk with you; I--I want to make a clean breast of
it.'
"`Well, I'm all attention,' replied Pompey--`all ears, as the donkey
said.'
"`Fact is, then,' continued Peterie, `I've been a rather unhappy man of
late, and my wife and I never understood one another, and never agreed.
She was in love with some scoundrel, you know, before we were married--
leastways, so they tell me--and I--I'm really afraid I've swallowed her,
Pompey.'
"`Hum!' said Pompey; `and does she agree any better with you now?'
"`No,' replied Peterie, `that's just the thing; she's living all the
wrong way, somehow, and I fear she won't digest.'
"`Wretch!' cried Peterie, starting to his feet, `behold me. Gaze upon
this wasted form: I am he who loved poor Peggy before her fatal
marriage. Oh! my Peggy, my loved, my lost, my half-digested Peggy,
shall we never meet again?'
"`Sooner,' cried Peterie, `perhaps than you are aware of. So it was you
who loved my silly wife?'
"`It was I.'
"`Wretch, you shall die.'
"`Never,' roared Pompey, `while I live.'
"`We shall see,' said Peterie.
"`Come on,' said Pompey, `set the table on one side and give us room.'
"That was a fearful fight that battle of the polyps. It is awful enough
to see two men fighting who have only two arms a side, but when it comes
to twenty arms each, and all these arms are whirling round at once, like
a select assortment of windmills that have run mad, then, I can tell
you, it is very much more dreadful. Now Peterie has the advantage.
"Now Pompey is down.
"Now he is up again and Peterie falls.
"Now Peterie half swallows Pompey.
"Now Pompey appears again as large as life, and half swallows Peterie;
but at last, by one unlucky blow administered by ten fists at once, down
rolls Potassium Pompey lifeless on Peterie's floor. Peterie bent over
the body of Pompey.
"`Bad job,' he mutters, `he is dead. And the question comes to be, what
shall I do with the body? Ha! happy thought! the struggle has given me
an appetite, _I'll swallow him too_.'
"Barely had he thus disposed of poor Pompey's body, when a renewed
knocking was heard at the outside door. There was not a moment to lose;
so Peterie hastily set the furniture in order, and bustled away to open
the door, and hardly had he done so when in rushed an excited mob of
polyps headed by two warlike policemen, who _headed_ them by keeping
well in the rear, but being, after the manner of policemen, very loud in
their talk.
"`Where is Potassium Pompey?' cried one; and--
"`Ay! where is Potassium Pompey?' cried another; and--
"`To be sure, where is Potassium Pompey?' cried a third; and--
"`That is the question, young man,' cried both policemen at once.
"`Where is Potassium Pompey?'
"`Oh!' groaned Peterie, `would I were as big as a bullfrog, that I might
swallow you all at a gulp.'
"`Away with him, my friends,' cried the warlike policemen, `to the hall
of justice.'
"In the present state of Peterie's digestive organs, resistance was not
to be thought of; so he quietly submitted to be led out with ten pairs
of handcuffs on his wrists, and dragged along the street, followed by
the hooting mob, who wanted to hang him on the spot; but a multitude of
policemen now arrived, and being at the rate of three policemen to each
civilian polyp, the hanging was prevented. The justice hall was a very
large building right in the centre of Coral Town. There the judges used
to sit night and day on a large pearl throne at one end to try the cases
that were brought before them.
"Now Potassium Pompey was a very great favourite in Coral Town, so that
when the wretched Peterie was dragged by fifteen brave policemen before
the pearl throne, the hall was quite filled, and you might have heard a
midge sneeze, if there had been a midge to sneeze, so great was the
silence. The first accuser was Popkins, the miserly old polyp who was
poor Peggy's father. He was too wretchedly thin and weak and old to hop
in like any other polyp, so he came along the hall walking on his one
foot and his twenty hands after the fashion of the looper caterpillar,
which I daresay you have observed on a currant-bush.
"`Where is me chee--ild?' cried the aged miser, as soon as he could
speak. `Give me back me chee--ild?'
"`If that's all you've got to say,' said the judge, sternly, `you'd
better stand down.'
"`I merely want me chee--ild,' repeated Popkins.
"`Stand down, sir,' cried the judge.
"After hearing various witnesses who had seen Pompey enter Peterie's
house and never return, the judge opened his mouth and spake, for
Peterie had said never a word. The judge gave it as his unbiassed
opinion that, considering all things, the mysterious disappearance of
Mrs Polypus, coupled with that of Potassium Pompey, whom every one
loved and admired, the absence of all defence on the part of the
prisoner, and the extraordinary rotundity of his corporation, as well as
the fact that he had always been a spare man, there could be little
doubt of the prisoner's guilt; `but to make assurance doubly sure,'
added the judge, `let him at once be opened, to furnish additional
proof, and the opening of the prisoner, I trust, will close the case.'
If guilty, the sentence of the Court was that he should then be dragged
to the common execution ground, and there divided into one hundred
pieces, and he, the judge, hoped it would be a warning to the prisoner
in all future time."
[When a polyp is cut into pieces, each piece becomes a new individual.]
"Twenty policemen now rushed away and brought the biggest knife they
could find; twenty more went for ropes, and having procured them, the
wretched Mr Polypus was bound to a table, and before he could have said
`cheese,' if he had wanted to say `cheese,' an immense opening was made
in his side, and, lo and behold! out stepped first Potassium Pompey, and
after him hopped, modestly hopped, poor Peggy. But the most wonderful
part of the whole business was, that neither Peggy nor Pompey seemed a
bit the worse for their strange incarceration. Indeed, I ought to say
they looked all the better; for Pompey was all smiles, and Peggy was
looking very happy indeed, and even Peterie seemed immensely relieved.
Pompey led Peggy before the throne, and here he told all the story about
how Peggy was murdered, and then how he, Pompey, was murdered next.
And--
"`Enough! enough!' cried the judge; `away with the doomed wretch! Let
the execution be proceeded with without a moment's delay.'
"`Please, my lord,' said Peggy, modestly, `may I have a divorce?'
"`To be sure, to be sure,' said the judge; `you are justly entitled to a
divorce.'
"`And please, my lord,' continued Peggy, `may--may--'
"`Well? well?' said the judge, with slight impatience, `out with it.'
"`She wants to ask if she may marry me,' said Pompey, boldly.
"`Most assuredly,' said the judge, `and a blessing be on you both.'
"In vain the unhappy Peterie begged and prayed for mercy; he was hurried
away to the execution ground and led to the scaffold. In all that crowd
of upturned faces, Peterie saw not one pitying eye. And now a large
barrel was placed to receive the pieces, and, beginning with his head
and arms, the executioners cut him into one hundred pieces, leaving
nothing of Peterie but the foot.
"`Now,' cried the judge, `empty the barrel on the floor.'
"This was done.
"And it did seem that wonders would never cease, for as soon as each
piece was thrown on the floor it immediately _grew up into a real live
polyp, and body and arms all complete and hopping_; and the foot, which
had been left, and which was more especially Peterie's--being all that
remained of him, you know--grew up into another polyp, and behold there
was another and a new Peterie. He was at once surrounded by the ninety
and nine new polyps, who all threw their arms--nineteen hundred and
ninety arms--around his neck, and began to kiss him and call him dearest
dada.
"`On my honour,' said Peterie, `I think this is rather too much of a
joke.'
"But nobody had any pity on him, and the judge said--`Now, Mr Polypus,
let this be a lesson to you. Go home at once and work for your
children, and remember you support them; if even one of them comes to
solicit parish relief, dread the consequences.'
"`How ever shall I manage?' said poor Peterie.
"And he hopped away disconsolate enough amid his ninety and nine baby
polyps all crying--
"`Dada dear, give us a fish.'
"`I think,' said the judge, when Peterie had gone--`I think, Mr
Popkins, you cannot now do better than consent to make these two young
things happy by letting them wed. Pompey, it is true, isn't a king, but
he has an excellent business in the potassium line, and none of us can
live without fire, you know.'
"`But I'm a king,' cried the aged miser; `I have mines of wealth, and
all I have is theirs. Come to your father's arms, my Peggy and Pompey.'
"`Hurrah!' shouted the mob; `three cheers for the old miser, and three
for Pompey the brave, and three times three for the bonny bride Peggy.'
"And away rolled Peggy in the golden chariot, with her father--such a
happy, happy Peggy now; and Pompey was carried through the streets,
shoulder high, to his old home.
"So nothing was talked about in Coral Town for the next month but the
grandeur of the coming wedding, and the beauty of Peggy, and everybody
was happy and gay except poor Peterie; for who could be happy with
ninety-nine babies to provide for--ninety-nine breakfasts to get,
ninety-nine dinners, ninety-nine teas and suppers all in one, two
hundred and ninety-seven meals to provide in one day?
"There were no more fishing excursions for him, no more big dinners, and
he worked and toiled to get ends to meet deep down in a potassium mine
in the darkest, dismalest corner of Coral Town. And everybody said--
"`It serves him right, the cruel wretch.'
"What a wonderful house that was which Pompey built for his Peggy!
"It was charmingly situated on the slope of a wooded hill, quite in the
country. Pompey spent months in furnishing and decorating it, and his
greatest pleasure was to superintend all the work himself. Such trees
you never saw as grew in the gardens and park, marine trees whose very
leaves seemed more lovely than any terrestrial flower, and they were
incessantly moving their branches backwards and forwards with a gentle
undulating motion, as if they luxuriated in the sight of each other's
beauty. Such flowers!--living, breathing flowers they were, and radiant
with rainbow tints, flowers that whispered together, and beckoned and
bowed and made love to each other. Then those delightful rockeries,
half hidden here and there amid the wealth of foliage, and there were
curious shells of brilliant colours that made music whenever there was
the slightest ripple in the water, and whole colonies of the quaintest
little animals that ever you dreamt of crept in and crept out of every
fissure or miniature cave in the rocks.
"At night the garden was all lighted up with phosphorescent lamps; but
inside the palace itself, in the spacious halls, along the marble
staircases, and in the beautiful rooms, nothing short of diamond lights
would satisfy Pompey; for you must know that Pompey thought nothing too
good for Peggy. So each room was lighted up by a diamond, that shone in
the centre of the vaulted roof like a large and beautiful star. Some of
these diamonds suffused a rosy light throughout the apartment, the light
from others was of a paley green, and from others a faint saffron, while
in one room the light from the diamond was for ever changing as you may
see the planet Mars doing, if you choose to watch--one moment it was a
bright, clear, bluish white, next a rainbow green, and anon changing to
deepest crimson. This was a very favourite dining-hall with Pompey, for
the simple reason that no one could be sure how his neighbour looked.
For instance, if a lady blushed, it did not look like a blush--oh dear
no--but a flash of rosy light; if an old gentleman indulged rather much
in the pleasures of the table, and began to feel ill in consequence, not
a bit of it, he was never better in his life--it was the bluish flash
from the diamond; and so, again, if last night's lobster salad rendered
any one yellow and bilious-looking, he could always blame the poor
pretty diamond.
"In some rooms the chairs themselves were made of precious stones, and
the ottomans and couches built of a single pearl.
"At length everything was completed to Pompey's entire satisfaction, and
he had given any number of gay parties and balls, just by way of warming
the house. Pompey flattered himself he had the best provisions in his
cellars and the best-trained servants in all Coral Town, and of course
nobody cared to deny that. These servants were nearly all of different
shapes: some were properly-made polyps; some rolled in when Pompey
touched the gong, rolled in like a gig-wheel without the rim, all legs
and arms, and the body in the centre; some were merely round balls, and
you couldn't see any head or legs or arms at all till they stopped in
front of you, then they popped them all out at once; some walked in,
others hopped, one or two floated, and one queer old chap walked on the
crown of his head. If you think this is not all strictly true, you have
only to take a microscope and look for yourself.
"`Heigho!' said Pompey one day, after he had finished a dinner fit to
set before a polyp king, `all I now want to make me perfectly happy is
Peggy. Peggy--Peggy! what a sweetly pretty name it is to be sure!
Peggy!'
"And that came too; for if you wait long enough for any particular day,
it is sure to come at last, just as whistling at sea makes the wind
blow, which it invariably does--when you whistle long enough.
"And never was such a day of rejoicing seen in Coral Town. The bells
were ringing and the banners all waving almost before the phosphorescent
lamps began to pale in the presence of day.
"Then everybody turned out.
"And everybody seemed to take leave of his senses by special
arrangement.
"All but poor Peterie, who was left all by himself to work away in the
deep, dark potassium mine. The wedding took place in Peggy's father's--
Popkins's--house. The old miser, miser no more though, was half crazy
with joy. And nothing would satisfy him but to have one of the upper
servants cooked for his breakfast. He didn't care, he said, whether it
was Jeames or the butler. So the butcher dressed the butler, and he was
stewed for his master's breakfast with sauce of pearls powdered in
ambrosia.
"And after the ceremony was performed, Pompey appeared on the balcony,
clasping Peggy to his heart with ten arms, while he gave ten other hands
to Popkins, his father-in-law, to shake as he cried--
"`Bless you, bless you, my children.'
"Then such a ringing cheer was heard, as never was heard before, or any
time since. Even Peterie heard it down in the darkling mine, swallowed
a ball of potassium, and died on the spot. As soon as Peterie was dead,
he (Peterie) said, `Well now, I wonder I never thought of that before;'
because he at once grew up again into ten new polyps, who forthwith left
the mine, joined the revellers, and shouted louder than all the rest.
"And when at last Peggy was in Peterie's house, when the idol of his
love became the light of his home, when he saw her there before him, so
blooming and bonnie, he opened his twenty arms, and she opened _her_
twenty arms, and--
"`Peggy!' cried Pompey; and--
"`Pompey!' cried Peggy; and--
"Down drops the curtain. It would be positively mean and improper to
keep it up one moment longer."