“This is most extraordinary,” the Doctor kept muttering to himself
as his pencil went wiggling over the page—“Most extraordinary—but
frightfully thrilling. I wonder where he—”
“Here’s some more,” I cried—“some more English.... ‘_The big tank needs
cleaning_’.... That’s all. Now he’s talking fish-talk again.”
“The big tank!” the Doctor murmured frowning in a puzzled kind of way.
“I wonder where on earth he learned—”
Then he bounded up out of his chair.
“I have it,” he yelled, “this fish has escaped from an aquarium.
Why, of course! Look at the kind of things he has learned: ‘Picture
postcards’—they always sell them in aquariums; ‘Don’t spit’; ‘No
smoking’; ‘This way out’—the things the attendants say. And then, ‘My,
here’s a queer one!’ That’s the kind of thing that people exclaim
when they look into the tanks. It all fits. There’s no doubt about
it, Stubbins: we have here a fish who has escaped from captivity. And
it’s quite possible—not certain, by any means, but quite possible—that
I may now, through him, be able to establish communication with the
shellfish. This is a great piece of luck.”
_THE SECOND CHAPTER_