ldren whose parents had not seen the light. When Junior
would lead a movement among the young bloods to pull up the Hemmings'
nasturtiums or would show flashes of personality by hitting little Leda
Hemming over the forehead with a trowel, Mrs. Hemming could never be
made to see that to reprimand Junior would be to crush out his God-given
individuality. All she would say was, "Just look at those nasturtiums!"
over and over again. And the Hemming children were given to understand
that it would be all right if they didn't play with Junior quite so
much.

[Illustration: Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing
at all.]

This morning, however, the thing solved itself. While expressing himself
in putty in the nursery, Junior succeeded in making a really excellent
lifemask of Mrs. Deemster's fourteen-months-old little girl who had
come over to spend the morning with him. She had a little difficulty in
breathing, but it really was a fine mask. Mrs. Deemster, however, didn't
enter into the spirit of the thing at all, and after excavating her
little girl, took Doris aside. It was decided that Junior is perhaps too
young to start in on his career unguided.

That is Junior that you can hear now, I think.

XVIII

POLYP WITH A PAST

THE STORY OF AN ORGANISM WITH A HEART

Of all forms of animal life, the polyp is probably the most neglected by
fanciers. People seem willing to pay attention to anything, cats,
lizards, canaries, or even fish, but simply because the polyp is
reserved by nature and not given to showing off or wearing its heart on
its sleeve, it is left alone under the sea to slave away at
coral-building with never a kind word or a pat on the tentacles from
anybody.

It was quite by accident that I was brought face to face with the human
side of a polyp. I had been working on a thesis on "Emotional Crises in
Sponge Life," and came upon a polyp formation on a piece of coral in the
course of my laboratory work. To say that I was astounded would be
putting it mildly. I was surprised.

The difficulty in research work in this field came in isolating a single
polyp from the rest in order to study the personal peculiarities of the
little organism, for, as is so often the case (even, I fear, with us
great big humans sometimes), the individual behaves in an entirely
different manner in private from the one he adopts when there is a crowd
around. And a polyp, among all creatures, has a minimum of t