Perhaps you have a coral necklace of little, uneven, red, stick-like beads.  The jeweller-man can tell you how very hard it is to drill the holes in these beads; it is like drilling through hard rock.  But if you happen to have a necklace, brooch, or bracelet of pink coral, my! you had better take good care of it, for it must have cost a little bag of gold.  Pink coral is rare, beautiful, and very expensive.  The genuine pink-tinted is said to have sold for so great a price as five hundred dollars for a single ounce.

Heigho!  I want neither necklace, brooch, nor bracelet.  For where, pray, would Lord Dolphin wear a breastpin, or how would he look with a string of coral beads about his neck, or a bracelet pinched about his tail?

You needn’t laugh so hard.  I have seen Folks who hung too much jewelry about themselves and seemed to think it becoming.  A few pieces of nice jewelry may be tasteful and ornamental, but when too much is worn, I have a fancy that it might make a coral mite or an oyster want to laugh.

Pretty soon I must explain why an oyster might have a right to be amused at seeing too many gems crowded on at once.  But first you must hear something funny about coral, something so silly, too, that even a fish is almost ashamed to tell of it; but this was true long in the past, Folks are much wiser now.

Long years ago there were Folks who believed that wearing a “charm,” which often was a little piece of coral, perhaps made into an ornament, would charm away harm or danger, and keep them safe from “the evil eye.”

“Dear sakes!” you cry, “what was ’the evil eye’?”

Well, it is almost sad to think that any one could be so foolish, yet when Folks know but little, they will catch up strange notions and listen to silly signs without an atom of truth or common sense in them.  So some ignorant Folks once believed that a witch, or some witchy Folk with an evil eye, might look upon them and cause them harm, or make them meet some danger.

And they pretended that hanging a bit of coral somewhere about them would keep off a look from “the evil eye,” and that making children wear a piece of it would charm away sickness and act as a medicine.  Now did you ever!

Chinese Folks and Hindoos have made most exquisite and wonderful carvings of the coral of the Mediterranean, and there is such a thing as black coral, also known as brain coral, but it is too brittle to be worked upon.

Ah, who would not be a Dolphin, merry and free, whisking through deep, still water, coasting over coral sands, and diving and sporting through coral groves!

Nor is this the only rare and curious place through which I rove, chasing my comrades, wandering about in search of caverns below, and sweet music above, while forever making war on my enemy, the flying-fish.

You see, these fish can cut through the water, reach the surface, then really fly with finny wings across short spaces right in the air.  They think themselves smart, and are great braggarts.