ime to
himself in which to sit down and think. There is always a crowd of other
polyps dropping in on him, urging him to make a fourth in a string of
coral beads or just to come out and stick around on a rock for the sake
of good-fellowship.

The one which I finally succeeded in isolating was an engaging organism
with a provocative manner and a little way of wrinkling up its ectoderm
which put you at once at your ease. There could be no formality about
your relations with this polyp five minutes after your first meeting.
You were just like one great big family.

Although I have no desire to retail gossip, I think that readers of this
treatise ought to be made aware of the fact (if, indeed, they do not
already know it) that a polyp is really neither one thing nor another in
matters of gender. One day it may be a little boy polyp, another day a
little girl, according to its whim or practical considerations of
policy. On gray days, when everything seems to be going wrong, it may
decide that it will be neither boy nor girl but will just drift. I think
that if we big human cousins of the little polyp were to follow the
example set by these lowliest of God's creatures in this matter, we all
would find, ourselves much better off in the end. Am I not right, little
polyp?

What was my surprise, then, to discover my little friend one day in a
gloomy and morose mood. It refused the peanut-butter which I had brought
it and I observed through the microscope that it was shaking with sobs.
Lifting it up with a pair of pincers I took it over to the window to let
it watch the automobiles go by, a diversion which had, in the past,
never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. A
tune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my little
charge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzy
pace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling.
Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most racking
kind.

I consulted Klunzinger's "Die Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres" and
there found that at an early age the polyp is quite likely to become the
victim of a sentimental passion which is directed at its own self.

In other words, my tiny companion was in love with itself, bitterly,
desperately, head-over-heels in love.

In an attempt to divert it from this madness, I took it on an extended
tour of the Continent, visiting all the old cathedrals and stopping at