"Outside, to our unspeakable horror, he made straight for a large ash-barrel which stood against the wall on the other side of a yard. Most happily for us, however, while he was crossing this yard a very dirty man with a wagon and horses drove up and took the ash-barrel away. I suppose it was his property.
"Then the old man looked around for some other place to throw us.
He seemed about to cast us upon the ground. But he evidently thought that this would make the yard untidy and he desisted. The suspense was terrible. He moved outside the yard-gate and my heart sank once more as I saw that he now intended to throw us in the gutter of the roadway. But (fortune was indeed with us that day), a large man in, blue clothes and silver buttons stopped him in the nick of time. Evidently, from the way the large man lectured and waved a short thick stick, it was against the rules of the town to throw dead fish in the streets.
"At last, to our unutterable joy, the old man turned and moved off with us towards the harbor. He walked so slowly, muttering to himself all the way and watching the man in blue out of the corner of his eye, that I wanted to bite his finger to make him hurry up. Both Clippa and I were actually at our last gasp.
"Finally he reached the sea-wall and giving us one last sad look he dropped us into the waters of the harbor.
"Never had we realized anything like the thrill of that moment, as we felt the salt wetness close over our heads. With one flick of our tails we came to life again. The old man was so surprised that he fell right into the water, almost on top of us. From this he was rescued by a sailor with a boat-hook; and the last we saw of him, the man in blue was dragging him away by the coat-collar, lecturing him again. Apparently it was also against the rules of the town to throw dead fish into the harbor.
"But we?--What time or thought had we for his troubles? WE WERE FREE! In lightning leaps, in curving spurts, in crazy zig-zags--whooping, shrieking with delight, we sped for home and the open sea!
"That is all of my story and I will now, as I promised last night, try to answer any questions you may ask about the sea, on condition that I am set at liberty as soon as you have done."
The Doctor: Is there any part of the sea deeper than that known as the Nero Deep--I mean the one near the Island of Guam?"
The Fidgit: "Why, certainly. There's one much deeper than that near the mouth of the Amazon River. But it's small and hard to find. We call it 'The Deep Hole.' And there's another in the Antarctic Sea."
The Doctor: "Can you talk any shellfish language yourself?"
The Fidgit: "No, not a word. We regular fishes don't have anything to do with the shellfish. We consider them a low class."
The Doctor: "But when you're near them, can you hear the sound they make talking--I mean without necessarily understanding what they say?"
The Fidgit: "Only with the very largest ones. Shellfish have such weak small voices it is almost impossible for any but their own kind to hear them. But with the bigger ones it is different.
They make a sad, booming noise, rather like an iron pipe being knocked with a stone--only not nearly so loud of course."
The Doctor: "I am most anxious to get down to the bottom of the sea--to study many things. But we land animals, as you no doubt know, are unable to breathe under water. Have you any ideas that might help me?"
The Fidgit: "I think that for both your difficulties the best thing for you to do would be to try and get hold of the Great Glass Sea Snail."
The Doctor: "Er--who, or what, is the Great Glass Sea Snail?"
