“ILLUSTRIOUS Mr. Pinocchio,” began Globicephalous, “if you do not
wish to stay with me, I can walk by myself. We can meet to-night.”
[Illustration]
“No, Globicephalous, do not leave me,” begged the brave son of Mr.
Geppetto, the carpenter. The idea of being alone with all those fish
gave him the shivers.
“But you may be ashamed,” began Globicephalous.
“Please forget that. Now listen to me. You are a servant, and you
can’t have studied much. Still you may know this: Mr. Tursio does not
want me to call him a fish. What is he, if not a fish?”
“Do you think Mr. Tursio would dare tell a lie to such an important
personage as you are?” said Globicephalous, who was having some fun
all by himself. “Neither Mr. Tursio nor Master Marsovino should be
called fish. Nor I either, for that matter.”
“What are you, then? Birds? You have about their shape, and you live
in the water. I know that in the sea there are only fish.”
“But you are mistaken. To many animals that live in the sea you
cannot give the name fish,” continued Globicephalous. “Fish have a
flat body, wedge-shaped fore and aft, as the sailors say, so that
they may move rapidly both forward and backward. They are each
provided with fins and a tail. These fins and the tail enable the
fish to swim about in the water. Some fish have only a few fins,
others have more. Then the fish has no lungs. It breathes in the
water by means of gills. These are the chief characteristics of fish.
But in the sea are many animals which do not possess them.”
“Please explain yourself,” said Pinocchio, who had understood little.
“Very well. Listen. There are the cetaceans, to which belong the
whales, the narwhals, and the dolphins; the amphibians, to which
belong the frogs and the seals; the mollusks, which is what the
little animals that live in shells are called; the crustaceans,
which is the correct name for the lobsters, crayfishes, and crabs;
and the zoöphytes, among which are the corals, sponges, and the many
varieties of polyps. All these, you must know, are not fish.”
“What hard names!” said Pinocchio, to whose wooden head these big
names meant but little. “What are you, then?”
“My masters and I are all cetaceans. We cannot stay in the water all
the time. We must often come to the surface, because we need air. We
have no scales like fishes nor fur like seals, but we have a smooth
thick skin under which is a layer of fat.”
“Thank you. But why, if you and your masters are all dolphins, are
you so unlike?”
“For the simple reason that there are different kinds of dolphins,
just as on the earth there are different kinds of dogs. As you have
noticed, we are of different shapes and sizes. We have different
names, too. I am a globiceps, my master is a tursian, and the young
master is a marsouin.”
“Who would ever think the sea is full of so many wonderful things!”
“Still you have not seen anything of what there is to see! On all
sides there are new things. Look at this,” continued Globicephalous,
picking up a shell and showing it to Pinocchio.
“Well, what is it? A lobster with a flower riding on its back?”
“Almost that. It is a small crustacean called the hermit crab.”
[Illustration]
“Hermit?”
“Yes. It is called that because it shuts itself up in a shell as a
hermit does in his cell. This crab’s cell is the empty shell of a
mollusk. And do you know why it shuts itself up?”
“No. Please tell me.”
“Because the back part of its body has no hard covering. So the crab,
to protect itself, uses the shell as a house and thus goes about
safely.”
“He must be a clever little fellow to think of that! But this flower
on the top—is that a part of the crab’s body?”
“That is not a flower; it is an animal.”
“An animal! But don’t you see that it has leaves all around?”
“Yes, and in fact it has the name of a flower. It is called a sea
anemone. But if you look closely you will see the little leaves, as
you called them, moving busily.”
“It is really true!”
[Illustration]
“They are tiny arms which the anemone uses to get its food. Throw
a piece of meat near them, and you will see them gather themselves
together. In a second the meat will disappear into the body of the
animal.”
“It seems hardly possible,” said Pinocchio again and again, as he
watched the anemone closely.
“This anemone,” continued Globicephalous, “is a great friend of the
hermit crab. Whenever you find one of these crabs you will find an
anemone on its back. When the crab grows and has to move to a larger
shell, do you think, my illustrious Mr. Pinocchio, that he abandons
his tenant? Never! The anemone has no legs, so the crab takes her
very carefully in his claws and carries her to his new home.”
“It sounds like a fairy story!” Pinocchio exclaimed, wonderstruck.
“Still these things are real, Your Honor, and are seen here every
day.”
Pinocchio, who had liked the idea of being called “Illustrious” was
delighted to hear himself addressed as “Your Honor.”
“So this servant thinks me a great man,” he thought proudly to
himself. He strutted round as if the whole world belonged to him.
While he was walking with his head in the air and his hands in his
pockets, he struck a round, flat object with his foot. Picking it up,
he looked it over carefully.
“Does Your Honor know what that is?” the cetacean asked him mockingly.
“Of course. It is the bellows my cook lost a few weeks ago, and
this,” he continued, picking up another object, “is the crumb brush
our maid lost last Sunday and looked all over the house for. I wonder
how they came to be here?”
Globicephalous turned a somersault, the better to hide his laughing
face.
Pinocchio, thinking that the dolphin believed all his tales,
continued his proud walk.
[Illustration: “GLOBICEPHALOUS TURNED A SOMERSAULT, THE BETTER TO
HIDE HIS LAUGHING FACE.”]
Lying on top of a rock not far off was a transparent object of
beautiful colors. It was closely woven like a net work, and looked
like a fan.
Pinocchio, having started on the road of story-telling, did not feel
like turning back.
“Just see how careless that maid was,” he began again. “Last summer I
gave her this beautiful lace fan, and now see where I find it! Good
care she takes of my gifts!”
Globicephalous continued his somersaults.
“Look again! These are surely the plants that were stolen from my
conservatories last winter,—”
Globicephalous had had too much. He interrupted Pinocchio with: “And
this, if it weren’t so small, might be used to whip boys who sell
tinsel for gold.”
Globicephalous was holding up a small object, which really looked
like a whip.
“What do you mean?” haughtily asked Pinocchio. “Do you dare to doubt
my word?”
“I don’t doubt it. I know there is not a word of truth in anything
you have said.”
“How do you know? Isn’t it possible for me to have a palace and
servants?”
“You might have, but you haven’t.”
“Who told you so?”
“I know it without being told.”
“How?”
“Listen. Do you want to know what these two things are,—the bellows
and the brush?”
“The bellows is a horseshoe crab. If you turn it over you will see
it has ten legs like a lobster. The brush is a sea fan. The little
plants, which were stolen from your conservatories, are simply coral
polyps. All except the crab are zoöphytes.”
“Now do you see, my great Mr. Pinocchio, why I cannot very well
believe all your tales?”
Pinocchio was simply breathless. “Zoöphyte! Zoöphyte!” he exclaimed.
“What does that big word mean?”
“Oh,” replied Globicephalous, with a learned air. “That word means an
animal that looks like a plant.”
“By the way, I remember you asked Mr. Tursio for a feather to put in
your cap. Here it is.” And Globicephalous gave the marionette a long,
delicate, feathery object of a bright yellow color.
“And what is this?”
“Another beautiful zoöphyte. And to finish the trimming of your cap
you might use this five-pointed starfish.”
“What? Is this a fish, also? Surely you are mistaken!”
“Oh, no, Mr. Pinocchio, I am perfectly sure that I am not mistaken.
The starfish is just as much an animal as the coral is.”
“It was a long time before people learned that coral is made by tiny
living animals. But now everybody knows that there are hundreds of
the little coral animals living and working together on the same
branch.”
“These little animals grow and multiply very quickly. In a short time
they even make mountains under the sea.”
“You know how to tell fanciful tales better than I, Globicephalous.”
“But my tales happen to be true ones, though they do seem fanciful.
That mountain you see there is made by coral polyps. If you should
climb to the top of it, you would find yourself on an island.”
“Very well. I’ll try it. I might find my father.”
“Yes, or you might meet some one, and ask whether he has been seen.”
“Ask! Do people live on islands in the middle of the sea? What are
you talking about?”
“Let me explain. After the islands are made, little by little they
are covered with earth. Then plants begin to appear from seed blown
by the wind or dropped by the birds. Then man may come. Why not, my
boy?”
“I have enough to think over just now. Good-by for a time.”
“Good-by. I will stay here. Do not lose your way.”
Without answering, Pinocchio began to climb. He was as agile as a
monkey, and was soon far up.
“I do hope I shall not lose my way,” he thought. “What a joke it
would be to be lost at the bottom of the sea!”