Away we scud, passing ships that think they are going pretty fast, but, O Neptune! our fins and tails take us along at a spanking rate, which makes the ships seem slow.

In one thing we are much like Folks.  Don’t laugh, please, but we are very, very fond of music.  Sometimes we catch the sound of voices singing on a vessel, and up we go, leaping fairly into the air to get as near the sound as possible.

And should there be a violin, a guitar, flute, or a cornet—­oh, yes, I know them all!—­on a passing vessel, we float alongside just far enough under water to keep our bodies out of sight, while we take in the strains in our own peculiar way.  For although our ears might be hard to find, we yet absorb or draw in sound very readily.

And now that you know quite a little about the Dolphin family, I will tell you some things that may interest you about my watery home.  For home, you know, is wherever one lives, whether it be in the air, on the earth, in the earth, or in the waters under the earth.

CHAPTER II.

UNDER THE WAVES

Pretty soon I must describe my playground, but first you must learn a few simple things about the place I love best of all places in the world, my home in the deep, deep sea.

Do you suppose that when the sky is dark and threatening up where you live, and when the wind is blowing like a hurricane, and the great waves lash about, acting as if mad, that there is great disturbance far below?

Do you suppose that when shipmasters are shouting out orders to the crew, and trying to keep their vessels from turning topsy-turvy or going down out of sight, that the fishes are scampering about wild, driven here and there by the fierce winds, and scared half to death by the fury of the storm?

Do you suppose there is a terrible roar of wind and wave that bangs us against each other at such times, and makes of the under-sea a raging bedlam?

Oh, by no means!  There is nothing of the kind down in what Folks call “the lower ocean.”  It is calm and quiet as the surface of a pond on a pleasant summer day.

And yet, if you wonder how I first learned about the lashing and the thrashing of the waves above our heads when there is a storm, let me tell about the time when I was a naughty, wilful fish, bound to have my own way and do just as I pleased.  It was when I was quite young, yet pretty well grown.  And this makes me wonder if growing little men-Folks and women-Folks ever are determined to have their own way, no matter what the mother may say.

I have an idea it is what is called the “smart age,” when the young, whether fish, flesh, or fowl, start up all at once, and think they know more than—­“than all the ancients.”  I heard that expression used once, and it seemed somehow to fit in here.

Well, I was a young, big fellow, when one day I felt the will strong within me to take leaps toward the upper sea.  Now, I have already said that my mother took the best and most watchful care of me when I was a chicken-fish.  So when she saw how restless and venturesome I appeared that day, she tried her best, poor dear, to turn me from my purpose.