CHAPTER VI
“IllustriousMr. Pinocchio,” began Globicephalous, “if you do not wish to stay with me, I can walk by myself. We can meet to-night.”
“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.”
“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 protectitself, 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!”
“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.
“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!”