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Lord Dolphin

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<h2> CHAPTER VIII. </h2> <center> MY STRANGE ADVENTURE </center> Now come the most exciting and in some respects the hardest events of my life thus far. I have told of my great love of music, and have also said that the Dolphin family is a very sociable one. Yes, and I could grow fond of Folks, I know, if only they could live in the sea, or I could live on the land. But as neither of these things can be, I must be content with liking them at a distance. One afternoon I was full of sport, and felt lively as a cricket. Oh, yes, I know the small, frisky fellow you call a cricket, with his little old black legs, and have heard him sing. So on this calm and lovely afternoon I began leaping upward instead of forward, and all at once I heard sounds of music floating across the upper sea. You can believe I floundered alongside, and oh, such sweetness as trilled out into the clear air! The truth was, a great steamer was crossing the Mediterranean with a pleasure party on board. What I heard was the music of a brass band. My! My! Isn't it enough to delight the heart of any creature that has ears to hear? It actually would make a fish dance. Now I didn't know it, but I made such plunges upward that my great dark body could be seen in the clear water, and some sailors began "laying" for me, half suspecting what might happen. Well-a-well, I got so full of music, joy, and friskiness, that all at once I gave a tremendous jump, and flounced right on to the deck of the fine steamer. Had I not been so utterly surprised, I should immediately have flounced back again to my ocean bed "quick shot," as I afterward heard a sailor say. But dear, deary me! I hesitated just a moment too long, and when I made a flop intending to bounce away, lo! a stout rope was about my body, and another about my tail, and I was a prisoner! Then the Folks all gathered about me, and the sailors went laughing off, saying something about "making the fellow's bed." Oh, it was all very strange and unnatural. And in a few moments I began panting for breath. Just as you would gasp, if by accident you popped over from a boat into the water. Only you would gasp for want of air, and I was gasping from too much of it. But it was not long before I was taken to a side of the vessel, and after straining and tugging with my great weight, I was indeed bounced into water, but when I tried to swim, oh, misery! what kind of a place was I in? Only a tank, some twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, filled with sea water! Truth was, there was a man-Folk on board who had caught, and wanted to carry to a great park in some far-distant land, a crocodile. Boo! a great sea-reptile that I wonder any one should want to have around, even as a curiosity. It had been taken from the river Nile in Egypt, much farther up the Mediterranean borders than I had ever been. The crocodile did not live, so I was put into its tank, and that was the "bed" the sailors had made, by filling it with salt water. Shade of my royal grandfathers! how long I could live in such pinching quarters was a question. I was given plenty of herring—so called—and other kinds of fish to eat, and "Folks" visited me about every hour of the day. There were children on the steamer, pretty little dears, that never tired of talking to me, and between them all, passengers, sailors, and the children, I learned how Folks talked, and a great many other things besides. One fine, manly little fellow visited me constantly. He was voyaging for his health, and took much pleasure in sitting beside the tank, book in hand, yet watching my movements, and once he said something that made me wish I could talk in the language of Folks. Yet before I tell what it was, I want to say that there was one thing I did not like at all, but was not able to let the Folks know it. The sailors called me "Dolly!" A great name to give a lord of the sea, a fellow bearing the title I owned! The next morning after my capture, a really fine Jack—sailors are all "Jack," you know—came rolling toward my tank, and sang out in sea-breezy fashion: "Hulloo, Dolly-me-dear, how do you find yourself to-day?" I liked his hearty manner and cheery voice, but, dear me, I was "Dolly" to every man-Jack on board after that, and to all the others as well. So this dear little man once said to me: "Oh, Dolly, how I wish you could tell me about things under the sea! I know if you could only talk my way, you could tell stories by the hour, and what pleasure it would be to listen." "Stories, indeed, my pretty," I thought, and I did wish I could open my wide mouth and entertain the little fellow with a few sea yarns. And now that in some way I can make Folks understand me, I only hope that my young steamer friend, among others, will see and enjoy Lord Dolphin's story. Then the lady-Folks were fine, with their pretty dresses, nice manners, and soft voices. But I did so like the children! One cute little nymph of a girl was crazy to get near me, yet nearly scared to pieces if I so much as looked at her. Oh, she was so fair to see, with her golden hair flying back in the breeze, eyes blue as the sky, and her sweet, dimpled face full of smiles! She would come running up to the tank with a great show of courage, crying bravely: "Hi, old Mister Dolly! I'se goin' a-put your great eye out!" But when the eye half-looked at her, off she would scud, and all I could see was a mass of flying yellow hair, a whisking of snowy skirts, and my little nymph was gone.   <center> <ANTIMG src="./images/05.png" height-obs="710" width-obs="450" alt="'One Cute Little Nymph of a Girl Was Crazy to Get Near Me'"> </center> A dozen times a day she would appear, and as long as I remained under water, she would hover near. There was a railing around the tank, which was sunk in, lower than the deck, so she could not fall in, nor could I possibly get out, but as soon as my head began rearing above the water, scoot! little Amy was missing. We had no hard storm while steaming over the bright Mediterranean. But one day the little man, whose name was Roland, said to wee Amy: "Clear day, isn't it?" And Amy replied, woman-fashion, "Yes, booful day, but what sood you do if there comed a big storm, and we all went ricketty, rockerty, and couldn't stand up single minute? Wouldn't you be 'fraid?" "N-o," said Roland, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "I don't think I should be much afraid, but I should want to keep quiet and think. What should you do?" and he smiled. "Oh, me would say my prayers, and keep a-sayin' them," said the child, soberly, then she added, "and up would go my prayers into the sky, and so I needn't be frightened a bit." Now I don't know in the least what "prayers" mean, but I remembered at once what that other child had done in the storm, and it made me think that the Friend the other little girl trusted lives up in the sky, and can hear when Folks tell that they need help. How lovely! Really, Folks ought to be very thankful for all they know!         <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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